by UmiNoor

Created on: June 30, 2010

Perhaps you’re one of four hundred million Facebook users who logs into your user account at least once every month or maybe you log in every day and has what psychologists call FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder). No matter how addicted you are to Facebook, you may not know some of the following interesting facts about Facebook.

1. Launch of Facebook

Facebook was launched on February 4th, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his fellow Harvard classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin from their Harvard dorm room. It started out as a social networking site to connect those who are Harvard students as well as graduates. It later includes other colleges and high schools to eventually be open for anyone in the world. It was formerly known as thefacebook.com which was later changed to simply Facebook.

2. Facebook Scandal

Facebook became the center of public attention when it was sued for copyright infringement. Former Harvard classmates twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra claimed that Mark Zuckerberg who was supposed to work with them in creating the base software for their social networking site ConnectU has stolen their business idea and technology and used them to start his own competitive site Facebook. The suit was settled in June 2008. The founders of ConnectU were reported to have received $65 million in stocks and cash.

3. Yahoo's attempt to buy Facebook

Facebook has become quite a powerhouse networking site that in 2006 Yahoo whose failed social service Yahoo 360, has tried to purchase it for $1 billion. However, Zuckerberg declined the offer claiming that Facebook is worth $4 billion which couldn’t be far from the truth as Facebook is now estimated to be valued between $7.9 to $11 billion now.

4. Facebook traffic stats

The traffic to Facebook is growing every day being only second to Google. YouTube comes in third while other networking sites like Twitter comes in at eleventh place and mySpace in twenty-fifth position.

5. Important statistics about Facebook :

- Four hundred million users log in at least once every month; half of which log in every day.

- Seventy percent of Facebook users come from outside the United States.

- Half of Denmark population are active users of Facebook.

- 8.3 billion hours are spent monthly on Facebook.

- The two most popular Facebook Pages are that of Michael Jackson and Homer Simpson.

6. Facebook investors

At the startup of Facebook, Zuckerberg got financial backing in the amount of half a million dollars from Peter Thiel who is the co-founder of Paypal. In May 2005, Accel Partners contributed $12.7 million to Facebook startup capital. Later, other companies like Microsoft, Greylock Partners and Digital Sky Technologies also invested in Facebook in return for a share in Facebook.

7. How Facebook makes money

Facebook offers free membership to its users. Facebook revenue comes mainly from advertising where advertisers are able to target specific audience based on Facebook users’ profile. Facebook makes available the profile of its users to advertisers so that they are able to reach targeted audience for their ads.

The above interesting facts about Facebook may be unknown to you before but now you know more about the number one social networking site on the internet.

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