Facebook — The Past, The Present, and The Future
The Journey of The Once Called “Startup”.
Originally called “Facemash”, Mark Zuckerberg established the first version of Facebook at Harvard University in 2003. It was initially designed to mimic the website Hot or Not, which was a social media website rating users based on their level of attractiveness. Zuckerberg and his friends hacked into Harvard’s computer network in order to collect student images. Within the first four hours of launching the site, Facemash had over 22,000 views.
Zuckerberg was soon shut down by his university and placed on a six-month period of academic probation since he obtained students’ photos without consent. Eventually, after this probation period was completed, Zuckerberg moved on to create The Facebook, which launched officially in 2004. Within one month, half of Harvard’s undergraduate student body signed up. Soon, Zuckerberg opened up the website to other universities, such as Stanford and Yale. In order to join, students needed an email address ending in “.edu”. As time progressed, Facebook continued to grow via the addition of new universities, high school students, and eventually, the general public. By the end of 2005, Facebook had over $9 million in revenue and six million monthly users.
