Facebook Phenomenon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Facebook Phenomenon - Essay Example These sites are defined as web-based services that permit people to create a semi-public or public profile in a bounded system; convey a list of other people who they share a connection with; and examine and navigate their record of connections and those of other users inside the system. Today, social network sites with varied technological affordances thereby sustaining a broad range of practices as well as interests exist in hundreds. Whilst the key technological features of these social network sites are consistent, the cultures emerging around them are different. Although most sites encourage pre-existing social networks’ maintenance, others assist strangers to hook up founded on shared interests, activities or political views. Moreover, while some sites take care of different audiences, others draw users based on nationality, common language or shared religious, racial, or sexual identities. This paper delves into Facebook, a popular social network that has taken the 19th century generation by storm. Introduction Facebook refers to a very popular internet phenomenon, primarily a site for social networking that allows individuals worldwide to communicate, share videos and photos as well as play such games as Oregon Trail, Scrabble and Chess. Facebook profiles are made up of a collection of small, java-based programs that one can add, and just like Mac, some of them link seamlessly to iPhoto, iTunes, and iCal. Unlike Mac, Facebook is free of charge (Mac Life, 2008). According to reports form Facebook users, on average, most people use between 10-30 minutes daily in Facebook and have between 150-200 friends on their profile (Ellison, et al., 2007). Gallaugher (2009) explains that Mark Zuckerberg, a student from Harvard, created Facebook in the year 2004 February and that Facebook was resulted from Zuckerberg’s drunken tryouts in his dorm room, with one of his experiments comparing his colleagues to farm animals, which almost led to his expulsion from the school. He was a sophomore in Harvard and in the weeks that he spent working on Facebook, he did not even have time to study for ‘Art in the Time of Augustus,’ a course that he was taking. He instead spent time creating a Website that contained every artwork in class and pinging his fellow students to put in to a common study guide. In a very short time, the acumen of crowds generated a sort of traditional Cliffs Notes for the module and following the appraisal of the Web-based crib pane, he championed the test. Later that year, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard. At first, the network was restricted for Harvard scholars. Phillips Exeter Academy, Zuckerberg’s high school, came up with the initial idea for the expression Facebook. The school passed the Face Book around to all students as a means of helping students to be acquainted with their classmates for the next year. During that time, it was an actual paper book and many colleges essentially gave stu dents printed facebooks, which included the students’ biographical information, study areas, interest areas among others. Zuckerberg introduced it to the internet and it was a great success. Within a fortnight, half of Boston’s colleges and universities and finally major corporations began requesting for the Facebook network. In four months’ time, Facebook included thirty new school networks. To assist in building Facebook, Zuckerberg recruited his friends Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz immediately (Treadaway & Smith, 2010). By the time Zuckerberg was twenty-three years old, he had won the favor of Newsweek – he was appearing on their cover and they were profiling him on sixty minutes. Moreover, the tech world