FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK            

            Facebook (formerly Thefacebook) is an online social networking serviceheadquartered in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellowHarvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.^[7] The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to high-school students. Since 2006, anyone who is at least 13 years old is allowed to become a registered user of the website, though the age requirement may be higher depending on applicable local laws. Its name comes from a colloquialism for the directory given to it by American universities students.

After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile, add other users as "friends", exchange messages, post status updates and photos, share videos and receive notifications when others update their profiles. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". Facebook had over 1.3 billion active users as of June 2014. Due to the large volume of data users submit to the service, Facebook has come under scrutiny for their privacy policies. Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering in February 2012 and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of $104 billion. As of February 2015 Facebook reached a market capitalization of $212 Billion.

    

Facebook, Inc.

Facebook login/signup screen
Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: FB
Founded	February 4, 2004 (11 years ago)
Headquarters	Menlo Park, California, US
Area served	United States (2004–05) Worldwide (2005–present)
Founder(s)	Mark Zuckerberg Eduardo Saverin Andrew McCollum Dustin Moskovitz Chris Hughes
Key people	Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman and CEO) Sheryl Sandberg (COO)
Industry	Internet
Revenue	US$12.466 billion (2014)[1]
Operating income	US$4.982 billion (2014)[1]
Net income	US$2.94 billion (2014)[1]
Total assets	US$40.184 billion (2014)[1]
Total equity	US$36.096 billion (2014)[1]
Employees	9,199 (December 2014)[2]
Subsidiaries	Instagram WhatsApp Oculus VR PrivateCore
Website	www.facebook.comTor: facebookcorewwwi.onion[3]
Written in	C++, PHP (as HHVM)[4] and D language[5]
Alexa rank	2 (September 2014)[6]
Type of site	Social networking service
Registration	Required
Users	1.39 billion active users (December 31, 2014)[2]
Available in	Multilingual (70)
Current status	Active