Facebook is the most popular social networking website on the Internet today with more than 500 million members worldwide, but how many of us really know the history of Facebook This is a rather interesting story of an unassuming 19 year old who did not realize the true potential of what he was setting out to accomplish. Mark Zuckerberg, born May 14, 1984 in New York, was a sophomore in Harvard University when he stumbled upon this marvelous creation that made him a millionaire within a few years.

The original idea behind this mammoth top social networking site was the rather shallow concept of placing the pictures of two people next to each other, and then having people vote for the hotter one. In a rather inconsequential game termed 'Hot or Not', Zuckerberg discovered the stage for a worldwide platform that would change the face of the Internet forever. Anyone looking for an answer to what is Facebook and how does it work will be surprised to hear the origin story of this platform.

The history of Facebook is not about a driven individual who wants to conquer the world. It is more about a geeky and somewhat reclusive teenager who stumbled upon a pot of gold by chance, and then milked it well to turn it into one of the most popular and talked about facets of Internet technology, ever. What started off as a platform for only students from Harvard, slowly spread to other Universities, then it spread to high schools, and eventually it became open to anyone over the age of 13.

Along with his roommates and classmates, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard's records department and stole everyone's private dormitory identification pictures. These are the guys who invented Facebook. At the time, there was no computerized record of all the students in the University, so the other students latched on to this concept hungrily. Web Design Brisbane In fact, it was noted that in its first 4 hours alone, Facebook amassed 450 visitors and more than 22,000 image views.

University officials soon caught on though, and charged Zuckerberg with breach of security, copyrights and individual privacy. Zuckerberg was facing expulsion for a few days, but eventually the charges were dropped. The next year Zuckerberg implemented some new ideas into the network, and added some useful features like a Comments section, amongst other things. A few Harvard seniors also accused Zuckerberg of stealing ideas, but they later settled these issues with Zuckerberg out of court. The history of Facebook is replete with such instances of people blaming Zuckerberg for stealing ideas and violating laws. The reality is that Zuckerberg created something unique and user friendly that no one else could match, so he did nothing wrong. People looking to make money on Facebook will find these articles on Facebook advertising tips and advantages of advertising on Facebook very interesting indeed.

Pretty soon the network spread to Stanford, Yale and Columbia Universities, all Ivy League schools, Boston University, New York University and MIT. Within a few months most of the schools and universities in the United States and Canada were on board, and a surprisingly large number of people knew how to use Facebook. In 2004 the company became incorporated, and moved base to its current location in Palo Alto, California. In 2005, a domain name was bought for facebook.com, and this was worth $200,000. One of the primary investors in the company was one of the co-founders of PayPal, Peter Thiel.

In September 2006, the network was opened to any individual who had an email address and was over the age of 13. This led to a surge in its popularity all around the world, leading to Microsoft buying 1. 6% stock in the company for $240 million. The total valuation of the company is anything between $10 billion - $15 billion. A few months back, Facebook also became the second most visited website in the United States (Read Facebook second most popular site in US), and this was a true landmark in the history of Facebook Brisbane Website Design. These figures bring us to the interesting issues of how does Facebook make money and how to make money on Facebook.

The future of Facebook is very bright indeed, and there are so many more people who are potential members of the network. Almost everyone who has access to the Internet today has heard about Facebook and the pros and cons of Facebook, and the only way for the company to move is upwards. This brief history of Facebook is only the beginning of a true global revolution.