Facebook:The Social Episode of Today

Facebook has emerged as the most-evil but much loved social scenario of our time, it hardly needs an introduction. Facebook almost approached a universal appeal while other similar services like Orkut and MySpace held sway in their respective quarters.

Feb 4, 2004 is the birth date of Facebook, it was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Harvard University students designed to help them relate to each other with the name emerging from the dictionary provided by American universities. Initially, the membership access to the website is limited to Harvard students by the founders, but later expanded to fellow universities. As it became popular and gets supports from the students at various other universities, it finally opened to high school students and eventually to anyone aged above 13.

However, mark Zuckerberg went a step forward by hacking into the Harvard computer network to copy the private images of students which were to be used in a program called Facemash, for which he faced expulsion charges but these were later dropped and he gives birth to TheFacebook.

The visibility of the website increased steadily with entrepreneur Sean Parker took over as the president of the flourishing start-up and Peter Thiel the co-founder of PayPal as its first investor. Later Microsoft joined the crusade by acquiring 1.6% shares of Facebook.

As of December 2016, Facebook had a market capitalization of USD 338 billion and as of third quarter of 2016 it has active daily users around 1.18 billion.

The first headquarter was set up in Palo Alto, California in June 2004. Later in 2008, it announced that their international headquarter would be in Dublin, Ireland, quite unusual choice for international operations but financially eminent because the Double Irish Agreement saves them from U.S. taxes for all its users from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and south America.

In 2010, Facebook arrived in India with its headquarters placed in Hyderabad as first Asian office. In early 2011, the company arrived back to California with new headquarter situated at Menlo Park which is the former campus of sun Microsystems.

Facebook keeps on innovating with its features and they have gone a considerable change over the time. However certain basic features remains the anchor of the Facebook.

This is basically the space where the contents of Facebook user’s profile are displayed. Wall has three display settings

User and others - Just user - Just others

Wall also incorporate the news feed where all the updates are displayed.

It is the first homepage users are presented with when they log into Facebook in which user see the constant activity of their friends. Newsfeed call attention to the information which includes profile changes, status updates, ‘Likes’, comments, upcoming events and other actions.

This is the new terminology for the wall, which categorizes all postings including messages chronologically. An option to hide a particular post from your timeline is also introduced.

Notifications are like ringing bells which informs the user about an activity done with his or her profile. The user gets every notification when an activity is done relating to his post which includes like, comments etc.

Facebook allows a user to send request to another user to become his or her friend, basically this the process by which different users connects with each other. User has to send a request and the other user has to accept it, thereby making them friends in virtual space. The option of unfriending is also present in case someone wants to stop being friend with a user.

Facebook messenger provides the facility to interact with each other through text messaging in which a user can send any number of messages to any of his friends. User can view the messages in his or her inbox.

Like button is the highlight of Facebook which apparently means that the option is to provide positive feedback about the content. User can like any update, advertisements etc. by clicking the like button at the bottom of particular content.

Comment can be said as the written feedback which a user can provide to any of the updates to the associated content like photos, status etc.

Photo application is one of the most appealing applications on Facebook where users can upload photo albums and tag friends backed by facial recognition technology.

Facebook pages are generally used for business purpose to connect with the customers and also by the celebrities with huge fan following to connect with their fans and followers. These are a way to increase your brand value.

Facebook groups like a particular virtual society which can be created by any user. Groups are used for discussion, events between users of particular section. It’s a way of sharing any particular information and discussion within a limited number of users.

Facebook event is a way for user to commercialize any social gathering or any upcoming events publicly or privately. It is also a good way to present any social event to everyone at once.

Facebook enables users to control their profile by choosing their own privacy settings. Users can control whom they wanted to see the particular information they have shared as well as their visibility and other options.

The management panel consists of Mark Zuckerberg as the Chairman and CEO, Sheryl Sandberg as Chief Operating Officer, Chris Cox as Chief Product Officer, Mike Schroepfer as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Financial Officer Dave Wehner. The controlling stake in the company is owned by Mark Zuckerberg with some key investors while 30% of the stake belongs to employees and some celebrities.

Facebook is founded with the concept of social communication in mind than for content viewing but most of its revenue comes from advertising. Facebook as a Fortune 500 company is being fifth most successful startup of all time.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in most of the English speaking countries including United States, United Kingdom and Canada. But it has a limited acceptance in some Asian countries like Japan where domestic social network are preferred.

The visibility of Facebook is highest in North America with 69% followed by Middle East with 67% then in Latin America with 58% after that Europe with 57% and lastly in Asia Pacific with 17% only.

Facebook has been facing a blockade in several countries mostly Asian like People’s Republic of China, Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Bangladesh on various grounds. It is also prohibited to be used by employees in some workplaces during working hours.

Facebook is having both positive and negative effect on social life. Some of its positive workings are to provide a platform for family friends and colleagues to remain in touch and at various instances is has also reunited the long lost families and friends.

But on the negative side there is no authenticity of the information shared on Facebook is true or not. There are lot misinformation that can be spread which leads to mass hatred or agitation against any individual or nation. Anyone can share a misleading picture or a picture which emulate a cool quotient like images of alcohol parties which might lead to increased consumption of alcohol. Anyone can use your posts or images for his benefit. There is also a psychological impact when options like unfriend or block being used.

The debate is still hot on whether the social impression is favorable or not because the sides have valid arguments with some points on Facebook's ability to provide continuous interaction within people while on the other hand the purely virtual nature of such interaction which in vanishing the live social communication. There are also viewpoints on Facebook being responsible for creating problems in a relation.