Facebook

== =Introduction= toc

[|Facebook] is a networking service and a social web space on the internet for students of high schools, colleges and universities and people in general to interact with one another, or in many cases, reconnect with friends that they had previously lost touch with. Facebook is also used in companies and other different regions.It connects people through their friends' friends. Facebook is currently only offered in English speaking countries. However, Facebook is growing in popularity by the day. People plan birthdays and random parties through Facebook. They send out invitations to people they want to invite also through Facebook. In addition, Facebook is a good place for people to chat, share pictures, and join clubs. People have been seen to send messages back and forth for several hours. It can be a very addictive environment.

__**Requirements of Facebook**__ Anyone can create an account with facebook and create their own personal space. All they need to provide on the register form is their name, their status and email address associated to their school or company.

=Users Experiences with Facebook:=

As the craze of the internet has ignited social networking to reach a new level, it is evident that apparent that facebook leaves uesrs feeling happy, satisfied and excited as they are enabled to connect to people all around the world- close and far. It seems that it is easier to keep in touch with people over the internet. Distance and space is no longer an issue and places like Faebook allow users to easily keep in touch by writing on each other's walls, sending messages and notes and just informing their friends on the status of their lives. It is always easier to communicate one message to a variety of people over the internet as oppose to telephone or in person as the personal contact is not necessary. Overall, users are happy, relaxed, satisfied and in control of their behavior while keepign in touch with their friends in social networking spaces like Facebook.

=History= Facebook is the spawn of Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student who created the site in February 2004. The site gained widespread popularity throughout the north eastern United States, mainly in the Ivy League schools and schools around the Boston area. As a result, Zuckerberb dropped out of school in order to concentrate in order to work on the site full time.

Revenue Model
As the current fastest growing site on the internet (aside from YouTube) Facebook has made itself known as an internet phenomenon. Consequently due to its fame a lucrative amount of cash is being generated as well. The revenue model for Facebook is similar to that of a newspaper, magazine, television network – viewers, readers, or subscribers. The viewer in the situation of Facebook are its registered members. From our personal setup information, Facebook has obtained the necessary business intelligence to know exactly what demographic the market it serves. From this business intelligence Facebook charges advertisers accordingly and it is rumored that Mark Zukerberg and his associates gross $1 million a week in advertising revenue – not bad for a university drop out.

=Implementation= Facebook is simply put a social phenomena. Users of the site are constantly logging into the site, as a report indicated over 60% of students who use the site check it daily. The creation of different groups on Facebook allows users to create care free environments, such as the “Procrastinators at U of T” group. In this group, users comment on the group wall about how they procrastinate too much with their school work, and how their marks are going to suffer because of it.

=Some Problems:= Some problems have risen since the change of facebook. Facebook introduced the new feature mini-feeds which allowed people to see what people have done with their facebook pages as soon as they log in. Since this new feature was introdcued many people have created facebook groups to petition against these new features, they feel this has violated their privacy and they cannot be free to do or say whatever they want on facebook in fear of other people seeing. Another problem that has been brought up is the subject of who should be able to join facebook. IMany people like to use Internet as a way to communicate because it gives them a sense of "privacy", since communications are not face-to-face and people cannot see what they have read or browsed. The problem wiht mini-feeds is that it makes people feel insecure by exposing what they have done in Facebook to the publict. Itprobably would be better if Facebook keeps these mini-feeds private, so that only the account user can view them. Facebook was originally a site for University students to join with their University e-mails to connect with other University students, now that they don't require a University e-mail to join facebook almost everyone with an e-mail address can join and many students feel that it's not safe for anyone to join facebook and look at their profiles. There have been many petitions against people other than students to join facebook. What differentiated facebook from all other social networks such as Myspace or hi5 is the fact that users had to be in university or college. You were able to post up your course codes and find others within the same programs as you and possibly partner up with them for an upcoming group assignment. It was also used for tuition fee rallies, frosh week preparation and linked you with other campuses within your school. Although this new feature has been added to facebook your profile or pictures cannot be viewed unless you accept the person as a friend. Facebook does a pretty good job in privacy and giving options to the user.

= = =Other Similar Websites= = =

Although Facebook is one of the many leading social networking services available online, many other companies and websites are competing with Facebook. Online communities such as [|Hi5], [|Classmates.com], and [|MySpace] offer similar services as Facebook. However, Facebook was primarily offered only to registered email addresses through a university, college or high school but recently now allows any user with an email address to join. These online sites all offer some kind of social networking services where users can see all the people that their friends know. This expands social networks and collaborates many different features such as emailing, posting comments, creating different groups with similar interests or sending instant messages to people in your network. Facebook also differs in that in comparison to [|MySpace], you only add people to your friends list if they are actually your friend, and not just a random person who likes likes your display picture and wants to add you.

Facebook has changed recently though, in that it is no longer seen as strictly a "post secondary" social network. Now, individuals who are not a part of any post secondary institution can register to facebook, and become a part of the community. This has people on the facebook community outraged, as this could lead to facebook eventually turning into a [|MySpace] type service.

=**CCIT Facebook Celebrities**= The Sheridan professor known as Mike Jones, "Mr. Jones," or "Jonser" - a term reserved for his college years



=Sources= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook [|www.ozskier.com/.../ andrew-facebook-762442.jpg] [|Meetmeinto.com]