Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to 

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 Create Account

Upload photos and video

Send messages and photographs

Links to news or other interesting content on the Web 

Play games online

Create Fan page, Group

Chat live, and even stream live video.

 Shared content can be made publicly accessible, or it can be shared only among a select group of friends or family, or with a single person..Originally designed for college students.

It was founded by    Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommate and fellow Harvard University student.

Facebook opened to anyone 13 years or older and took off, overtaking MySpace as the most popular social network in the world.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/

                       History and Growth of Facebook

  Facebook was initially incorporated as a Florida LLC. For the first few months after its launch in February   2004, the costs for the website operations for thefacebook.com were paid for by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo  Saverin, who had taken equity stakes in the company. The website also ran a few advertisements to meet its    operating costs.

One of the reasons credited for the rapid growth and popularity of Facebook was its exclusivity. Originally, to join Facebook you had to have an email address at one of the schools in the network. It soon expanded beyond Harvard to other colleges in the Boston area, and then to Ivy League schools. A high school version of Facebook launched in September of 2005. In October it expanded to include colleges in the U.K., and in December it launched for colleges in Australia and New Zealand. In 2005 nearly  400  million people was using Facebook.

On October 1, 2005, Facebook expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom and others around the world. Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step. At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies.

In 2007, Facebook launched the Facebook Platform, which allowed developers to create applications on the network. Rather than simply being badges or widgets to adorn on a Facebook page, these applications allowed friends to interact by giving gifts or playing games, such as chess.

Late in 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages, allowing companies to attract potential customers and tell about themselves. These started as group pages, but a new concept called company pages was planned

In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. In 2008, Facebook launched Facebook Connect, which competed with OpenSocial and Google+ as a universal login authentication service.

In 2010, Facebook began to invite users to become beta testers after passing a question-and-answer-based selection process, and a set of Facebook Engineering Puzzles where users would solve computational problems which gave them an opportunity to be hired by Facebook.  In july 2010 nearly  500  million people are using faacebook.

 As of February 2011, Facebook had become the largest online photo host, being cited by Facebook application and online photo aggregator Pixable as expecting to have 100 billion photos by summer 2011.As of October 2011, over 350 million users accessed Facebook through their mobile phones.

 On April 24, 2014, Facebook and Storyful announced a new feature called FB Newswire .  December 31, 2014  Number of facebook users increased to  1,390  million.

 Worldwide, there are over 2.01 billion monthly active Facebook users for June 2017 (Facebook MAUs) which is a 17 percent increase year over year. 

 Facebook features :

•                           Customized profile
•                           privacy and security
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">Friend list management

                                                                            Photo album management

                                                              Interactive chat

                                                              Facebook live 

                          Fan pages

                                                              Group chat

                          Audio, Video chat

                          Voice mail 

 Facebook Paper. During the same week as its tenth anniversary, Facebook launched the Paper iPhone app. The app consists of two major features: Firstly, Facebook's News Feed is more graphic, as the app uses technology such as full-screen photos and video footage .

Facebook paper review  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq6-b9_V9lA

Facebook’s developer network facilitates advanced functionalities via applications. Facebook Connect is a login authentication service that enables cross-platform and customizeable Web interaction.

                                            Why use Facebook?

Have you ever wondered why people like using Facebook? After all, there are already a lot of other ways to communicate online, such as email, instant messaging, and so on. What makes Facebook unique is the ability to connect and share with the people you care about at the same time.

For many, having a Facebook account is now an expected part of being online, much like having your own email address. And because Facebook is so popular, other websites have worked to integrate Facebook. This means you can use a single Facebook account to sign in to different services across the Web.

Facebook allows you to maintain a friends list and choose privacy settings to tailor who can see content on your profile.

Facebook allows you to upload photos and maintain photo albums that can be shared with your friends

Facebook supports group pages, fan pages and business pages that let businesses use Facebook as a vehicle for social media marketing.

Facebook Connect allows websites to interact with Facebook and allows Facebook to be used as a universal login authentication service.

You can stream video live using Facebook Live.

 Facebook offers privacy tools to help you limit who can see the things you share, it's important to understand that Facebook is designed to be more open and social than traditional communication tools. We'll talk more about sharing and controlling your privacy in our lessons on Understanding Facebook Privacy and Adjusting Your Privacy Settings.

 

Use Facebook If You Run a Business or Organization

Facebook pages and ads can be invaluable marketing tools. You can use a public page casually to just stay connected with your current customers or you can invest real money into Facebook's advertising platform to generate new leads.

Use Facebook If You Love Gaming

There's a lot more to Facebook than just posting and browsing.You can play online games by accessing the game tab from the Apps section. If you have friends who are into Facebook gaming too, you can play together and help each other out in achieving new milestones and moving up levels. 

Use Facebook If You Love Visual Content

In addition to keeping up with friends and family, Facebook is a great place to upload all of those family photos. You can also browse through your feed to see interesting photos and videos shared by friends and pages you've liked.