Facebook (formerly [thefacebook]) is an online social networking service. Its name comes from a colloquialism for the directory given to students at some American universities. Facebook was founded in 2004. 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 their high-school students. Facebook now allows anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old worldwide to become a registered user of the website, although proof is not required.
Users create a personal profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, post status updates and photos, 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 one billion active users as of September 2012 (of which approximately 9% were fake). Facebook held its initial public offering in 2012 and reached a peak market capitalization of $104 billion.
Dramatic increases in its mobile business drove another successful quarter for Facebook, sending shares soaring. And while app install ads are playing a huge role in that success, there are several… Read more »
Three core drivers are changing the television landscape and confusing advertisers: consolidation of big-media distribution, platform-driven viewing fragmentation, and the infiltration of social media into television. Read more »
During Facebook’s earnings call yesterday it seemed like things couldn’t get any better for the company, with both revenue and engagement growing rapidly. But this morning, the company one upped itself… Read more »
Twitter picked a rather opportune moment to publish its horrifying staff diversity statistics: During Facebook’s quarter two earnings release. Read more »
Facebook’s latest user engagement numbers, coming from its 2014 second quarter earnings statement, show a company riding high. Of Facebook’s active users, 63 percent use the site every single day. Read more »
The law requires web services operating in Russia to store citizens’ data in local facilities. It’s supposed to protect Russians from overseas hackers, but the censorship potential is clear. Read more »
Big Switch, a company that has shifted from building a controller for software defined networks to building an OS to run atop bare metal switches, is trying to make enterprise networks… Read more »
Facebook’s acquisition of virtual reality startup Oculus is now final, the company announced Monday. Facebook announced the purchase for $1.6 billion in stock and $400 million in cash in March. “We’re… Read more »
On Monday Facebook announced a new “Save” bookmarking feature for reading links later. It’s a helpful tool for decreasing news feed clutter, but it furthers the company’s shift away from social. Read more »
Using the graph analytics engine MusicGraph.ai, customers can run analytics and machine-learning algorithms to discover interesting facts, including who is the most connected artist of all time (it’s Frank Sinatra, by… Read more »