Facebook is a famous free social networking website that allows registered users to create their own profiles, upload photos and video, as well as send messages and chat with friends, family and colleagues. Friends and family members can now connect anywhere with each other in a network of relationships, sharing photos and videos, sending emails or message, playing trivia quizzes and games, and generally having casual day-to-day contact that is often difficult due to geographical distances and busy lifestyles. Facebook is now available in more than 100 different languages [1] which come from great works of volunteer translators all around the world. By using Facebook’s innovative Translations application, all phrases and words in Facebook are translated into several major language on earth such as Spanish, Français, German, Italiano, and etc [2].

Mark Zuckerberg, 23, founded Facebook while he was studying psychology at Harvard University [3]. Majoring in computer programming, Mr Zuckerberg developed a number of social-networking websites for fellow students, including Coursematch, which allowed the users to view people taking their degree, and Facemash,[4] where you could rate people’s attractiveness. In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook”,[5] as it was the original name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students had signed up, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile.[6] As of September 2006, the network was extended beyond educational institutions to anyone with a registered email address and over the age of 13. According to Facebook’s Press Room, the social networking site currently has over 400 million active users The site remains free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue. Yahoo and Google are among companies which have expressed interest in a buy-out, with huge figures of around $2bn (£975m) being discussed. However, Mr Zuckerberg has so far refused to sell Facebook[6].

Features

Facebook’s users can create their own profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Chatting with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages or a chat feature. Users can also create and join interest and fan groups, some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. To combat privacy concerns, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see what parts of their profile.

Upload photos is one of the most popular applications on Facebook. Users can upload their favorite photos to their album, tag friends or family members who in the photos and comment on the photos [7]. The people who are being tagged are available to view the photos and give comment on the photos. Another feature of Facebook is users can upload and share their video clips on Facebook [8]. Video clips can be either uploaded via users’ personal computer or linked to YouTube website. Furthermore, viewers are allowed to comment and tag friends or family members on the video clips.

Status updates also one of the most favorite applications used among Facebook users, which allows users to post their current mind or message to be shared with friends in Facebook [9]. They can share their current status such as feelings, whereabouts, actions and relationship in the post. In turn, friends can respond the message by giving comments on the poster’s status. Users can also click “Like” button to show that they are enjoying reading or agree with the message posted.

Moreover, Facebook allows users to create and join their own favorite groups or clubs. Groups are used for discussions and events etc. Groups are a way of allowing Facebook users to come together to share common interest and discuss specific subjects. Its interface and framework allow a user to spread news and information virally as quick as any social bookmarking service [10]. Besides that, users can upload photos and video to the group to be shared. On April 5, 2008, Facebook pre-released Facebook Chat [11]. This attractive feature of Facebook enables users to live chat with another via Facebook. Although users are only able to chat with their Facebook friends and on a one-to-one basis, the user may chat with multiple friends simultaneously through separate chat interfaces. It is a simple and easy application and need not to install any software in order to send instant message. In order to improve the quality of instant message, Facebook developer announced that they are working on XMPP support, allowing hundreds of instant messaging clients to interoperate with the service [12].

Another reason why Facebook can be popular is the website equipped with a lot of interesting games and quizzes. The fun thing is that users can play with friends online, rather than just a stranger never met. However, they can choose to meet new friends if they like. In the game, the player’s moves and scores are saved in the website. A friend list is shown during the game to inform that user’s friends are playing the specify games too. In order to play game in Facebook, the Adobe Flash Player plug-in is required to be installed on the browser [13]. Adobe Flash Player is one of the most common software and it is download for free, so playing all the games in Facebook is not a problem for most users.

Future of Facebook and Recommendations

Facebook’s advertising revenue appears to still be growing high. We estimate that the company will bring in up to $1.1 billion this year(2010). Subsequent reports have quotes sources saying the company could reach $2 billion[14]. In the future, Facebook would be the next top advertising medium. Facebook is free to users and it generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads [15]. With the huge growing number of users, Facebook has an opportunity to become a first search engine in the internet world that combines both social and real time results. Besides that, Facebook is replacing the need to many instant messenger services provided by such companies as ICQ, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger [16]. That is undeniable because Facebook is launching a simple instant messenger service built into the site interface that is going to allow users to communicate just like users do with Windows Live Messenger [16]. Although its interface looks simple, it is easy and need not install to be used. In the future, the Facebook developer is working on XMPP support which can improve the quality of instant messenger in Facebook website.

[1]http://www.globalbydesign.com/blog/2009/03/17/facebook-from-1-to-100-languages-in-two-years/

[2]http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/04/02/now-you-can-help-translate-facebook-into-any-language/

[3]http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010-3#we-can-talk-about-that-after-i-get-all-the-basic-functionality-up-tomorrow-night-1

[4] http://atypicaljoe.com/index.php/site/comments/facemash_facebook/

[5] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118539991204578084.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[6] http://knol.google.com/k/facebook/

[7] http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2406207130

[8] http://mashable.com/2007/05/24/facebook-video-launches/

[9] http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1885010,00.html

[10] http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2007/09/successful-facebook-groups.html

[11] http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/06/facebook-chat-enters-pre-release-beta/

[12] http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=110

[13] http://hybridhacking.com/node/35

[14] http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/30/facebooks-revenues-grow-but-financial-market-expectations-grow-even-faster/

[15] http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-147857.html

[16] http://www.blogohblog.com/the-future-of-facebook/