Facebook Essay: Global Phenomenon

Most of our planet’s population at least heard about Facebook. I’m registered there, my mom registered there, I bet, even my neighbor’s dog has a Facebook account as well. But how a simple social networking website became so widely popular? What is so special about it? Let’s find out in this facebook essay. If you’re interested to read more essay on different topics, there’s an amazing place where you can do so.

Story

Facebook was created in a Harvard dorm by fellow students: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.

Mark Zuckerberg, one of the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world according to the Time magazine, was born in White Plains, New York on May 14, 1984. His father ran a dental practice and his mother worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of their four children. When Zuckerberg was around 12 years old, he created a messaging program called “Zucknet”, using Atari BASIC, which was later used in his father’s office to inform the arrival of a new patient. Mark’s fascination with computers continued throughout his teenage years and after graduating from Exeter in 2002, he enrolled at Harvard University, developing the reputation of programming prodigy, where he met Eduardo Saverin and the other future co-founders.

Eduardo Saverin, born on March 1982 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in a wealthy Jewish Brazilian family of a father, who was working in clothing, shipping and real estate, mother, who was a physiologist and two siblings. In 1993 the family immigrated to the United States. After finishing Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami, Saverin went to Harvard, where he became a member of the Phoenix S.K. Club and a president of Harvard Investment Association.

On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg with his college roommates and Severin launched a social networking website called “Thefacebook”, which was initially limited to Harvard students, but gradually expanded to other colleges - first in the Boston area, Ivy League and then to most universities in Canada and the United States, but by September 2006, everyone from the age of 13 and older with a valid email address could register there. In summer 2004, Facebook was incorporated and Zuckerberg’s informal adviser Sean Parker became the company’s first president. In 2005 the company dropped ‘the’ from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com for $200,000.

Hurdles

The ladder to success wasn’t covered in a soft and pretty rug, made of flowers. In early days Facebook faced a lawsuit, filed by Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra – Harvard students and creators of ConnectU (originally HarvardConnection ). They accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and insisted that Mark needed to pay for their business losses. A settlement of $1.2 million common shares and $20 million in cash was reached between two parties in 2008.

Until 2009, Eduardo Saverin wasn’t acknowledged as a co-founder. In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg asked Saverin to become his business partner and get about 30% of the company. In 2004 Mark and Dustin Moskovitz decided to move to Silicon Valley and Saverin was asked to take care of paper work, get funding and find money. But Saverin was very slow in making decisions and eventually his role was taken by en entrepreneur Sean Parker, who quickly got a co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel as an investor. From this point, the Saverin’s share of the company was diluting from 10% and lower. Saverin eventually sued Facebook and got about 5% of the company, and also signed a non-disclosure.

Today

Nowadays, Facebook is still the most popular social network, perhaps, in the world. In May 2012, its initial public offering raised $16 billion, which made it the internet IPO in history. Later, in May 2013, Facebook joined the Fortune 500 list for the first time. This made Mark Zuckerberg, at the age 28, the youngest CEO on the list.

The company celebrated its 10th anniversary in February 2014 and in each of the first three months of that year, over a billion users logged into their Facebook account.

Also, Facebook purchased one of the most anticipating gadgets of 2016 – Oculus Rift, which is a virtual reality system that completely immerses you in a virtual world. That can lead to virtual reality enabled interactions and content in the future. More information and a great bunch of topics that will tickle your interest can be found on livecustomwriting.com.

The Social Network

In 2009 a book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich hit the stores. The author was greatly criticized for re-telling Mark Zuckerberg’s story, which he filled with invented scenes and imagined dialogs.  But, despite the critics, Mezrich managed to sell his far-from-the-through tale to screen writer Aaron Sorkin that resulted in the birth of “The Social Network”. The film gained huge success and appeared on 78 critics ‘Top 10 lists for 2010’, taking the first spot in 22 of those. At the 83d Academy Awards, “The Social Network” received eight nominations and won three of them for The Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Film Editing. The film also got awards at the 68th Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

Zuckerberg objected strongly to the film’s story and stated that his feelings were hurt by how Hollywood portrayed him. In his first public Q&A session, Zuckerberg said that the film had “made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful”. One visible feature that the filmmakers managed to succeed in was the Facebook co-founder’s wardrobe.

Conclusion

Facebook started as a site for college students, with an elite number of US universities allowed to get a registration. In 2014, 56% of users aged 65 and older have an account there, 39% are connected to people that they briefly or even never met in person. Facebook changed how we communicate, the way we share our lives. It, somehow, made the world smaller, helping us to stay in touch with people we love and people we met at the pub last weekend. As David Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Facebook Effect”, once said on the BBC Radio 4’s Today program, “Facebook has proven its ability to morph, and it will continue to be a very, very major player”. If you like this essay and want one to be customized just for you, there’s no better place than our website to help you with it.