Last edited Fri May 29, 2020, 09:52 PM - Edit history (1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
Harvard University (2002–2004)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook
FaceMash, Facebook's predecessor, opened in 2003, developed by Mark Zuckerberg; he wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a type of "hot or not" game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two female student pictures side by side and let them decide who was more attractive.
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A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information. In 2003, there were no universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed and private online directories. Zuckerberg told the Crimson that "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."
In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website, known as "TheFacebook", with the inspiration coming from an editorial in the Crimson about Facemash, stating that "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 in the site. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched it under the name of "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.
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In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.
The company dropped 'The' from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in (August) 2005 for $200,000.
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On October 1, 2005, Facebook expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom and others around the world. Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step. At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. On December 11, 2005, universities in Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to 2,000+ colleges and 25,000+ high schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid email address.
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I signed up with Facebook when I turned 13 in 2009, but deleted my account in (not sure the exact month, it was in the fall) 2011, as I had developed an aversion to it and I also had serious privacy concerns. I remember stumbling across an old cartoon in 2011 from late 2006 or 2007, where is was a room full of US CIA and NSA people, who (I think some huge scandal had just come out about them snooping on Americans in the mid-noughties) where sitting around pondering about how would they now get people to willingly (as they could not spy on them anymore clandestinely) give up all there person info, daily whereabouts, habits, interests, friends, etc etc, and in ran a fresh-faced Zuckerberg saying, (I am paraphrasing) 'Do I have something to show YOU!!!'
I still have a 2009 Twitter (the very first Tweet ever was March 21, 2006, and it was publicly launched July 15, 2006) account that I only use to read Twitter.
I also have a 2009 YouTube (YT launched April 23, 2005) account, and a Whatsapp (first released January 2009, the main 2.0 version was launched in August, 2009) account. I also have a reddit account (launched late June, 2005) since 2009 as well. I also have been on Skype (launched 29 August 2003) since I was 10 (my parents said it was oki, as I talked to my relatives all over the world on it, and they put money into my account at first) in 2006.
I never did Instagram (launched July 16, 2010), Pinterest (launched March 15th, 2010), Snapchat (launched as Picaboo on July 8, 2011, rebranded as Snapchat in September 2011), Flickr (launched February 10, 2004), Tumblr (launched February 1st, 2007), LinkedIn (launched May 5, 2003), Viber (launched December 2, 2010), Dischord (launched May 13, 2015), or WeChat (launched January 21, 2011.)
I also refuse to use TikTok (launched in China in September 2016, globally September 2017) due to even worse security concerns than I have with Facebook. Same for Telegram (launched 14 August 2013), which is Russian run, and the owners can access your shit, as although it does have client-server encryption, the network developers have encryption keys. Telegram and Gab (launched on August 15, 2016) are littered with white power Nazis and alt-right scum world-wide.
I also do not use Messenger, aka the old Facebook Chat, which was gradually released to users in April 2008. Facebook revamped its messaging platform in November 2010 and subsequently acquired group messaging service Beluga in March 2011, which the company used to launch its standalone mobile apps on August 9, 2011 (I quit FB a month or two after that).
Friendster, (launched in March 2003), hi5 (launched in June 2003), and MySpace (launched in August 2003), were all before my time (their heydays.)
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