Last name of the founder of the social network Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook Success Story

All sorts of fables about Facebook and its “real” owners are floating around the Internet. Some are sure that everything is run solely by Mark Zuckerberg, others are convinced that this social network is the product of intelligence services monitoring the Internet-active population. In fact, Facebook belongs to a number of shareholders who saw it as a profitable business project.

Facebook, of course, owes its existence to Mark Zuckerberg. It was this man’s enthusiasm that led the initially small project to the success we see today. The year of birth of the social network is officially recognized as 2004, and at that time Facebook was available only to Harvard students. Throughout the year, the social network has been actively growing, “capturing” students from American and Canadian universities. By that time, programmer Dustin Moskowitz and Mark’s classmate Eduardo Saverin had already joined Zuckerberg as financial director.

The turning point for the project was Mark’s acquaintance with Sean Parker, at that time already a well-known Internet entrepreneur. Sean was one of the first to see the huge business potential in the new product and convinced its founders to register Facebook as an independent company. As president of the newly formed company, Parker began searching for investors.

The first to respond to the tempting offer was Peter Thiel, the founder of the PayPal payment system. Later, a response came from Reed Hoffman, another famous Internet businessman. Investments from investors and the active work of developers led to the fact that already in 2006, Facebook became an international social network.

In 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.5% stake in Facebook, which also gained the opportunity to place its advertising on the site. And already in 2009 it became known that Facebook was making a profit. At the same time, the company became a leader in profitability among Internet projects. To this day, she has not lost her position.

Current situation

Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is its main owner and CEO. He accounts for 28.2% of the company's shares. Programmer Dustin Moskowitz is also not out of business and holds 7.6% of the shares. The largest third-party investor to date is Accel Partners.

The company owns 11.4% of the shares. Russian representatives of Internet business are not giving up their positions either. Mail.ru Group holds a 5.5% stake in Facebook.

Thus, Mark Zuckerberg created and gave impetus to Facebook. But without the support and active work of his comrades, the project could very quickly wither and not gain the glory that it can boast of today.

Facebook: success story

There is not a person in the modern civilized world who has not heard about Facebook. The most successful business project of the 21st century, a breakthrough in the field of communications, a tool that can change the world, the most visited site on the Internet... All this applies to Facebook. What is the phenomenon of social networking? How did an average student turn a small website run from his dorm room into a $100 billion company in just a few years? The answer to this and other questions can be found by looking at the history of Facebook.

A few words about Zuckerberg

You can't start describing Facebook without talking about the company's founder.

The creator of the largest social network of our time, Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984 in the small town of White Plains, which is located near New York. Mark’s family was the most ordinary: his father worked as a dentist, his mother was a psychiatrist. Zuckerberg was the second child and had one older and two younger sisters.

Mark developed a love for programming at school. Already at the age of 11, he wrote websites, and in the ninth grade he created the computer game “Risk”. In addition, Zuckerberg, together with a school friend, came up with an MP3 player that could automatically create playlists based on user preferences.

But if you think that Zuckerberg was only good at programming, then you are very mistaken. Mark is a winner of school Olympiads in astronomy, mathematics, physics and languages. In addition, he was an excellent fencer and knew Hebrew, Latin, ancient Greek and French.

After graduating from a private school in New Hampshire, Mark was invited to work by two leading US IT companies - AOL and Microsoft. However, he did not agree, preferring to study at one of the most prestigious universities in the world - Harvard.

Zuckerberg entered the Faculty of Psychology. In his second year, he moved into the Kirkland House student dormitory. Here the talented student became even more interested in programming. In the early days, Mark created an online application called Course Match. This service made it possible to find out which Harvard students would take a particular course. This application very quickly became popular among students. Mark also earned extra money by making custom programs. Zuckerberg did not spend much time studying.

Facebook at its inception

Mark proposed to implement something similar at the university, but the management refused him. So Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard's servers and created a website called Facemash, where students could go and vote on photos that were submitted in pairs. In the survey, you had to choose your favorite photo. The site was rapidly gaining popularity, but it only existed for a few days, after which it was closed. Mark's actions caused outrage among the university leadership and several student organizations. The question of Zuckerberg's expulsion was raised, but Mark apologized, after which the charges were dropped.

This event occurred at the end of October 2003. In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg seriously began developing a new project. On February 4th, thefacebook.com website went live. In just a month, more than half of Harvard students registered on the resource, with 70 percent of them accessing the site daily. Zuckerberg could not cope with the increasingly popular site on his own, so he brought his roommates to work on the project. Dustin Moskowitz worked on the software, and Chris Hughes promoted the site. This project was financed by Eduardo Saverin.

Just a few days after the opening of the site, the Winklevoss brothers, for whom Zuckerberg once worked, said that Mark stole the idea of ​​​​creating a social network at Harvard from them. This became the subject of a lawsuit that dragged on for several years and resulted in the brothers receiving $65 million.

Over the next few months, all Ivy League universities were connected to the resource. Amazingly, when each educational institution connected to Facebook, most of the students of that university quickly joined.

In the summer of 2004, Mark meets Sean Parker, who agrees to join his team. The guys decide to rent a house in Palo Alto, the historical center of Silicon Valley.

The rapid growth of the social network

In Palo Alto, the guys started optimizing Facebook and connecting new servers. The social network caused the effect of a bomb exploding. More than 80 percent of Ivy League students registered, two-thirds of whom visited the site daily and were extremely active. The load on the resource was colossal, so Mark chose the only correct strategy - to connect new universities and colleges to the network only when technical capabilities allow it.

The new school year was supposed to start in September, and with it a new surge in Facebook user activity. The guys planned to connect new universities and colleges, whose students were already looking forward to this. Zuckerberg and his team worked most actively at night. The best decisions, according to Mark, were made at 3-4 o'clock in the morning. While working, the guys communicated with each other using the AIM program. The mansion was in disarray. Empty energy drink cans and other trash lay everywhere. From time to time the company threw noisy parties. In general, the guys did not get bored in Palo Alto.

Meanwhile, Sean Parker was registering the company and searching for investors. By mid-2004, Facebook was already officially registered. Soon investors were found. The first of them was Peter Thiel, one of the founders of the PayPal payment system. He invested $500,000 in the network, receiving in return about 10% of the shares and a seat on the board of directors.

Autumn arrived and the network continued to expand. People have already started talking seriously about Facebook. At the end of 2004, the number of users exceeded one million, and the company's estimated value reached $90 million. But Mark Zuckerberg wasn't after money. He realized that if he maintained complete control of the company, he could change the world.

The next investor was Accel Partners, which invested $12.7 million in Facebook. The company now owns a 10 percent stake in the social network.

In the new year 2005, Mark continues to develop the network and connect universities and colleges to it. That same year, Zuckerberg launched a photo service inside Facebook. In addition, the site design has been updated.

After connecting universities, the company took on schools. There were fears that schoolchildren would not appreciate the resource, but they were not confirmed. But the attempt to create working networks ended in failure.

In the summer of 2005, Mark purchased the facebook.com domain for a huge sum of $200,000. That same summer, Sean Parker resigned as president of the company due to a drug scandal.

Further development of Facebook and its unprecedented prospects

At the beginning of 2006, 25 million people were already communicating online. The company's specialists were developing two innovations at once - a news feed and public registration. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg was in talks with Yahoo! about the sale of the company. But if the Internet giant wanted to purchase Facebook for $1 billion, then Mark was simply trying to find out the price of his brainchild.

At the beginning of September, the news feed was launched. Within a matter of hours, a major scandal broke out: while working to ensure that users could see the most interesting news from the lives of their friends, Zuckerberg and his team forgot about privacy settings. Numerous protest groups emerged, and articles condemning Mark's actions were published one after another in newspapers and blogs. But instead of immediately correcting the mistake and apologizing, Zuckerberg simply monitored the situation. Ultimately, Mark did what he had to do, but this incident still left a stain on the company’s reputation.

At the end of the month, anyone could register on the network. Now not only students and schoolchildren, but also middle-aged and older people could join Facebook.

The number of network participants grew rapidly, and already in October 2007 the barrier of 50 million people was overcome. There was a need for new investments in the company, so Mark began to negotiate with two Internet giants at once - Google and Microsoft. As a result of these negotiations, Microsoft and Facebook entered into an advertising agreement. In addition, the Internet giant acquired several percent of the shares, based on the value of Facebook at $15 billion.

In August 2008, the 100 millionth user was registered, in 2010 the number of network users reached 500 million, and in 2012 it exceeded a billion.

In 2012, Facebook shares went public. At the same time, the estimated value of the company was more than $100 billion.

But Mark Zuckerberg is not going to stop there and sets himself quite ambitious goals - to increase the network to 3-5 billion people. The network continues to actively develop, developers are working on new functions and improving old ones.

Now Zuckerberg is at the height of his fame, owning a controlling stake in the most popular Internet resource and several billion dollars. But this man is not even thirty years old! This is real success!

Section: Motivation

  • Business ideas
  • Motivation
  • Documentation
  • Taxes
  • Business
  • Mark Zuckerberg born on May 14, 1984 in one of the wealthy areas of New York.

    He was brought up together with his three sisters in the family of a dentist and a psychiatrist. Even in elementary school, I began to show increased interest in programming. And with the advent of the first computer, he plunged headlong into his hobby. Mark was in sixth grade then. Mark created his first serious achievement in the field of programming - a computer version of the board game "Risk" - by the beginning of the ninth grade.

    While still a student, together with a friend he wrote a program for MP3 - player Winamp. Using this program, the computer not only analyzed the user’s musical interests, but also independently created playlists that suited him. After the newly created program was made available for free access to the Internet, Microsoft Corporation offered Mark Zuckerberg about two million dollars for his brainchild. However, Mark refused the deal - as it turns out later, the future billionaire and founder of Facebook has a complex and unpredictable character.

    Despite his incredible passion for computer programming, young Zuckerberg finds time to both study and practice his favorite sport - fencing. Mark Zuckerberg excelled in science and mathematics, and also, while immersing himself in antiquity, studied ancient languages. His interest in ancient languages ​​was so strong that one day he completely devoted his summer holidays to attending ancient Greek language courses at a summer school. The result is the ability to read and write fluently in both classical languages. Despite this, when entering university, the young man chooses a discipline completely unrelated to languages ​​- psychology.

    Mark Zuckerberg studied at Harvard, where he was almost expelled for hacking the university database. He posted photos of students in pairs on his website, encouraging users to vote for the more attractive one. In just four hours, the number of site visitors increased to half a thousand. The management of the educational institution cut off the resource, obliging Zuckerberg to apologize to the allegedly injured students. However, this idea was so approved by the students that they demanded that the university administration immediately restore the resource. After reopening the resource, half of all Harvard students registered there within just two weeks. And by mid-spring, the list of users of one of the first social portals, Facebook, also included students from such famous universities as Yale and Stanford.

    Thanks to the convenience of a hierarchical system that organizes users by groups, courses and many other parameters, as well as the ability to post photos and any other personal information, Facebook is becoming incredibly popular among students. The main advantages of Facebook include the fact that it is a social network for real people to find real people. Also here you can independently define the user group that will have access to your profile.

    A chance meeting with Sean Parker, an Internet cult figure and one of the creators of Napster, a file-sharing program, turned the life of the Facebook founder in a different direction. Thanks to Parker, Mark Zuckerberg meets an experienced businessman and co-founder of the PayPal payment system, Peter Thiel, who, after a fifteen-minute conversation with Mark, decided to invest him for 500 thousand dollars. Mark Zuckerberg leaves his studies at the university, writing an application for an indefinite academic leave, and devotes himself entirely to work.

    At first glance, $500,000 is a fairly large amount, but it was still not enough to fully satisfy all the financial needs of the new startup. Mark and his company had to rent space in Palo Alto. The working conditions were completely uncomfortable - there was not enough furniture for everyone, the rooms with servers were not ventilated, and the Californian heat above 45 degrees Celsius made it impossible to work.

    In the fall of 2004, the social network Facebook had more than a million users. And six months later, thanks to the help of Peter Thiel, the company received a serious investment of $12.7 million from Accel Partners, thanks to which the number of active users reached the five million mark in the fall of 2005.

    After some time, the rules of the popular social network were slightly changed. Anyone could become a Facebook user if they had a valid email address. According to Forbes magazine, the 23-year-old Facebook founder is 785th on the list of the world's billionaires and worth $1.5 billion. Mark Zuckerberg is rightfully considered the youngest billionaire in history.

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    Facebook history

    Important points in the biography of Mark Zuckerberg, programs created by him earlier. Creation of Facebook. Film "The Story of a Star Boy". Facebook headquarters is in Menlo Park. Company shares: their value and purchase. Book "The Age of Facebook".

    Today it is difficult to find a person who has not heard of the Facebook website. This is the most popular social network that unites millions of users from around the world. The Facebook founder, when creating this site, could not even imagine that it would soon become so popular. The number of users is growing every day. The founder of Facebook is today a rich and famous person. The whole world knows about him. The founders of less popular sites can only envy him. This man deserves admiration. In general, Facebook developers did their best, thanks to which people got such a wonderful site.

    But let's focus on the main figure, on creator of the site. If you are not yet familiar with the founder of Facebook, you will probably be interested to know about him. Let's get started? The founder of Facebook, whose biography will be presented below, is a rather interesting person. He was born on May 14, 1984 in a town called White Plains, which is located in the state of New York. By the way, the name of the founder of the social network is Zuckerberg. And his name is Mark. The Facebook author lived in a large family: there were four children. He was born second. The head of the company had excellent educated parents: a psychiatrist and a dentist.

    On his tenth birthday, his parents gave Mark his first computer - Quantex 486DX, it was then that he realized that there are two categories of people - users and programmers. The future owner of Facebook already understood that the former simply use the PC for personal needs, while the latter bring real benefits. Mark was very proud of his new computer and couldn't tear himself away from the monitor. The one who created Facebook many years later was just beginning to be interested in programming, tired of boring computer games. Soon Mark created a couple of small programs, including a computer version of the famous board game called "Risk". But this was far from his main achievement at that time. He also created the program Synapse. The boy invented it for his own personal use. The program was, in fact, an “intelligent” mp3 player that remembers information about which tracks, at what time and how many times the owner listens, so that he can then automatically turn on exactly what he likes at a certain moment. Information about this extraordinary program reached Microsoft, and they also learned about Mark himself. AOL also showed interest in his personality. But the little prodigy did not want to sell his program and refused to cooperate with these companies. Without any hesitation, Zuckerberg put an end to the opportunity to get a lot of money and become an employee of one of the best IT companies on the planet.

    Now you know who invented Facebook. Amazing biography! And no wonder, because the one who founded Facebook simply must be an extraordinary person. You could say that Zuckerberg is a genius in his own right. Perhaps you will sometimes remember who created Facebook in order to take an example from him in some way. Biographies of great people motivate.

    Creation of Facebook

    Now let's talk about how Facebook was created. This is also an interesting story. How was Facebook created? It all started at Harvard. The university had an intranet and it had a place where students uploaded their pictures and personal information. And young Zuckerberg suddenly wanted to have some fun: he created a program that selected any two photographs and made a comparison of who was more beautiful. Many students wanted to evaluate their appearance. By the end of the first day, 4,000 students visited the resource. At the moment when the number of visitors to the site reached 20,000, it broke down, unable to withstand such a load.

    But the brilliant site had already been created at that time. When did Facebook appear? February 4, 2004. Now you know what year the site was founded. Quite a lot of time has passed since then. Today everyone understands that the date of creation of the company was a truly significant event. On this day the world changed. Facebook celebrated its birthday quite recently, a few days ago. Many remembered this date and were surprised at the transience of time.

    When the site was created, people had no idea that it would become so famous. And this happened some time later. You can count how old is the social network. Neither more nor less - ten. Zuckerberg initially named the network "The Facebook". It was intended for university students. Young people liked the site mainly because they could be divided into groups, courses and companies that were in the educational institution.

    When the site went live, Mark told reporters that the network was created in just seven days. He just came up with a website and wrote it right away. The owner of Facebook admitted that four people helped him. They also made significant contributions to the creation of the site. The owners of Facebook, except Mark, are E. McCollum, E. Severin, D. Moskowitz, and K. Hughes. Don't forget these people. The creators of Facebook did their best when creating the site. Thanks to them, we can now spend interesting time talking with friends, reading news and watching videos. The creators of Facebook gave us a brilliant site. Its genius is evidenced by the huge and constantly growing number of users. The creators of Facebook will forever remain in history. After all, they made a real masterpiece. Now you know how Facebook was created. Not in detail, of course, but at least a little.

    "The Story of a Star Boy"

    The history of Facebook, as you already understand, is very fascinating. If you want to know more, watch the documentary about him. It’s called “The Story of a Star Boy” (it’s a documentary, not a documentary, although it’s based on real events and turned out to be quite interesting). This film leaves no one indifferent. It contains the entire history of the creation of Facebook from beginning to end. Take a look and you won't regret it. The history of the creation of Facebook is described in most detail in this movie. From it you can learn what Facebook developers had to go through before they became famous. The film is so interesting that it is impossible to tear yourself away from the screen.

    Facebook languages

    What is Facebook written on? Used PHP, Java Script, ASP.NET, HTML, JQuery and many other languages. So it is impossible to give one answer to the question of what language the site is written in. It should be understood that this is a very large-scale project. Also, at the moment, even special extensions of standard languages ​​have been developed, which can actually be called independent languages: FBML, FBJS, FQL.

    Headquarters and office

    The site's headquarters is located in the city Menlo Park. It's a pretty nice town. The Facebook office is also located here. Needless to say, everything here is at the highest level. The Facebook office gathers many employees within its walls. Despite the crowd, this is a fairly cozy place.

    Shares

    How to buy Facebook shares? Find them at. They are indicated by letters FB. By the way, Dzhigurda recently bought shares in Facebook. He also said that he wants to meet with Zuckerberg to give him some useful advice regarding the site. 🙂

    Corporation value

    Another topic that interests many is the cost of Facebook. This really sparks curiosity. How much is Facebook worth? From 85 to 95 billion US dollars. Now you know how much Facebook costs. Agree, impressive? The cost of a corporation is incredibly high. Capitalization also occupies the minds of many curious people. The company's capitalization is 123 billion US dollars. This amount is amazing. The social network's income is surprising. Some may not even be able to sleep at night after learning these numbers. Monitoring the company shows that it has very good prospects.

    "Facebook Era"

    You probably already know what Facebook is and there is no need to describe things that everyone knows? Therefore, I want to tell you the story of Facebook in my free version. More precisely, the history of the creation of Facebook and its development to the level of the largest social network on a global scale.

    Yes, perhaps this is the most powerful social network in the world, which in a few years has transformed from a service for a small circle of friends into a global platform for communication. This word is now on the lips of every representative of the progressive young generation. Facebook is gradually becoming an integral attribute of our lives. And not by chance.

    The history of the creation of Facebook began long before the final formulation of the very concept of “social network”. At the time of the birth of Facebook, there were no social networks in our usual sense. The history of the development of Facebook is at the same time the history of the development of social networks.

    Everything new that appears on Facebook is copied by others and becomes the de facto standard. And that's why the Facebook story is getting so much attention. Using her example, we study the experience of building a completely new service, the experience of developing and implementing social services, and the experience of interacting with huge masses of users.

    Now let's look at the history of the creation of Facebook a little more specifically and in more detail. To also taste the experience :)


    Mark Zuckerberg

    The founder and “developer” of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, a young man who dropped out of Harvard (precisely because of Facebook), with an unconventional view of how people communicate with each other.

    The personality is quite contradictory. Some consider Zuckerberg a selfless genius who made all of humanity happy. Someone is an unscrupulous thief, thinking only about getting a lot of money. Someone is just lucky, who created a service, what is called “for himself”, which then “shot”. There are many opinions.

    Personally, I consider Zuckerberger a typical Jew who clearly sees his goal and goes towards it, without looking at anyone and stopping at nothing. All history of Facebook development it confirms. What's the goal? Wait and see.

    Start

    The youngest billionaire of our time, Mark Zuckerberg, developed a passion for computers in the 6th grade. He began his thorny path with the famous programming language C++ and in his youth developed the computer “Risk”. Then there was the program that Zuckerberg created for his father. With its help, employees of his company could communicate with each other.

    Afterwards, Mark programmed a special application called “Synapse”, capable of automatically generating “playlists” of listeners based on their musical preferences. The program turned out to be so successful that such monsters as Microsoft and AOL turned their sophisticated eyes to it. The company immediately offered Mark a good job (although on the condition that all rights to “Synapse” would go to Microsoft). Already a sensible young man in his youth, Mark Zuckerberg refused.

    He wanted more. And now we can say that he did the right thing then. By the way, the relationship between Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates does not end there, but more on that later.

    Why Facebook "Facebook"

    Many believe that it begins from the time of Harvard University, where Mark joined the faculty. A talented programmer with enormous potential at the Faculty of Psychology - it was a rather unconventional decision :-)

    However, the story of Facebook's creation began a little earlier - at Phillips Exeter Academy, a private school with a rich tradition in New Hampshire. Or rather, not the creation itself, but the accumulation of the basis on which Facebook subsequently grew.

    As a student of this school, Mark Zuckerberg received at his disposal the so-called “The Photo Address Book”. It was a kind of student directory in which you could find photographs, telephone numbers and even addresses of your classmates. The data in it was updated annually, so it was very convenient for every student.

    Do you know what schoolchildren called this book among themselves? "The Facebook"! The reason is simple to the point of banality - the original name was too long to pronounce.

    Upon entering Harvard, Mark discovered that there was no such service at the university. He took the initiative to create an online directory similar to “The Facebook” to management. And he received a refusal, which was based on the confidentiality of student data.

    In narrow circles they say that this circumstance really infuriated the talented programmer. And he had no intention of backing down.

    Facemash

    One fine day (or night) Mark Zuckerberg hacked into the Harvard University database and created a simple website codenamed “Facemash”. The concept of this site was simple - visitors were offered photographs of female students and the opportunity to evaluate them on a certain “scale” of attractiveness. The site was only accessible within Harvard.

    It is better to indicate what came out of this in numbers and figures: within 2 hours after the site was launched - 450 visitors and 22,000 photo views! Note that the visitors were fellow Harvard University students. Those. 450 direct acquaintances of the owners of posted photos in 2 hours!

    As soon as information about such a “heroic” act reached the leadership of the educational institution, it was no longer Mark Zuckerberg who was furious. As a result, he got serious problems, and the site was successfully closed. But if anyone thought that this stopped Mark, then he is deeply mistaken.

    Creation of Facebook

    February 4, 2004 can be remembered for various events. For example, on this day at the Sotheby’s auction, the most avid collectors competed for the right to own the stunning sculpture “The Great Dancer” by Edgar Degas. And on the same day, the social network “The Facebook” was launched in a small dorm room at Harvard University. Launched quietly, modestly and without fanfare.

    In addition to Zuckerberger, the “starting” lineup included three more students: Eduardo Saverin (as Facebook’s first financier), Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes (as assistant programmers).

    So it began modern history of Facebook. The initial promotion and formation of the starting audience was carried out using good old SPAM. This is one of the most striking examples in when SPAM gave phenomenal results.

    Winklevoss brothers, take one

    A huge number of scandals always gather around any brilliant idea. And the history of the creation of Facebook was no exception.

    Exactly 6 days after the launch of Facebook, three Harvard University seniors (Brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, as well as their friend Divya Narendra) accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, on the basis of which, according to them, he created Facebook.

    They claimed that back in 2003 they recruited Mark Zuckerberg (inspired by the “success” of his Facemash story) to create their service HarvardConnection.com. They convinced everyone and everything that a number of their personal ideas and developments, which they shared with Mark, were brazenly borrowed by the latter when creating Facebook.

    The details of this scandal are not particularly interesting, and the information about it is very contradictory. Let's focus on the main points and that will be enough.

    Offended high school students complained to the university leadership, and also convinced the editors of the university newspaper “Harvard Crimson” to publish an exposing article. This was facilitated by the appeal of another student, John Thomson, who claimed that Zuckerberg used his idea at Facebook.

    The story of litigation and mutual claims lasted for several years. Facebook ended up paying $65 million in compensation: $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook stock.

    My opinion coincides with the opinion of other reasonable people who believe that Zuckerberg stole, if not completely, then a significant part of the idea from the Winklevoss brothers. And since they did not enter into any contracts with Zuckerberger when they were hired, the history of the creation of Facebook is connected with the name of Mark Zuckerberger, and not the Winklevoss brothers.

    History of Facebook development

    Initially, The Facebook focused exclusively on Harvard University. In the first month of the social network's existence, about half of Harvard students registered with it.

    But already in March 2004, “The Facebook” went beyond the walls of Harvard and connected students from Stanford, Columbia University and even Yale to its network. Mark Zuckerberg targeted universities in the so-called Ivy League, which included all the elite schools. Then, most of the largest educational institutions in the US and Canada were gradually connected to Facebook.

    Any development is impossible without active investments. At the time of its creation, “The Facebook” existed on the sheer enthusiasm of fellow students and small financial investments from Eduardo Saverin (whom Zuckerberg would later cunningly “throw away”, forcing him out of the company and leaving him high and dry) to pay for server services.

    But the hour came when Facebook became so big that it demanded maximum attention. And in order for the history of its development not to be interrupted, more significant finances were required. Mark Zuckerberg leaves for Silicon Valley and settles in Palo Alto. There he meets Sean Parker, who went down in Internet history thanks to the creation of the file-sharing network Napster, which was notorious for numerous scandals and lawsuits with record companies. After Napster closed, Parker dreamed of working for a company that would change the world with its ideas.

    Facebook exactly met Parker’s “demand.” And Zuckerberger needed Parker because of his numerous acquaintances with the financial tycoons of Silicon Valley. As a result, at a certain point in Facebook's history, Parker and Zuckerberg were developing the company together.

    Sean Parker convinced Zuckerberg of the need to grow the project and attract third-party funding, for which he promised solid support.

    The first investor in Facebook was Peter Thiel, one of the founders of the famous PayPal. His investment amounted to $500 thousand. Thanks to this, in less than six months, The Facebook collected its first million users. From this point in its history, the company has been actively involved in venture investment issues.

    In 2005, for just $200,000, the social network's domain name brought a small change. The prefix “the” disappeared and just “Facebook” appeared. After this, the social network ceased to be positioned as aimed exclusively at students. Anyone could register to communicate with their friends. A new stage has begun in the history of Facebook.

    Facebook and the world

    For example, the monopolist Yahoo! offered $900 million for the entire project. And he received another refusal from Zuckerberg.

    Here Bill Gates appears again in the history of Facebook, who buys 1.6% of Facebook shares for $260 million. From that moment on, the founder and ideological inspirer of Microsoft Corporation started his personal page on the social network. But if you think that Mr. Gates limited himself to this, then you are deeply mistaken.

    After purchasing the shares, he entered into an agreement with Facebook, under the terms of which the social network posted Microsoft on its pages until 2011.

    In 2008, Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest billionaire in world history - his fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion.

    Among Facebook shareholders you can also meet Russian investors. In 2009, Digital Sky Technologies, which is controlled by Yuri Milner, Grigory Finger and Alisher Usmanov, acquired 1.96% of preferred shares for $200 million. Later, Russian investors bought another 3% stake. To date, the participation of Digital Sky Technologies is 10%.

    The social network Facebook is actively developing and implementing its own API, which allows you to connect numerous applications (games, informers, calendars, etc.). And on September 30, 2010, Facebook entered into an agreement with the telecommunications corporation Skype, so integration of the two giants is expected in the near future.

    Facebook representatives say that in 2011 the social network will have its billionth user registered. And enormous efforts are being made to achieve this mark.

    Today you can view Facebook in 68 languages. Promotion to many regions of our planet is complicated by low-speed Internet. And serious steps are being taken in this direction - the creation of a light version of the social network called “Facebook Zero”. Negotiations are also being held with representatives of cellular communication companies (including Beeline and MTS) about the possibility of viewing pages from mobile phones.

    In the current 2011, the history of Facebook promises to be no less interesting. Just look at the next lawsuit by the Winklevoss brothers, who again decided to “shake” the wallets of the founders of the social network. This time the brothers' financial appetite has increased significantly. Specific amounts have not been announced, but according to some reports, demands of $500 million or more can be expected.

    Perhaps the insatiable millionaire brothers should direct their efforts towards realizing their main dream - being included in the Olympic rowing team at the Games in 2012? In any case, now the whole world is waiting to see how the brothers’ next bold attempt will end.

    Conclusion

    History of Facebook creation clearly confirms one simple thought - everything is only in your hands. You can, of course, look for a guy who will do everything, and all you have to do is make a profit. Only in this case there is a very high chance of flying like the Winklevoss brothers.

    Or you don’t have to wait for the weather by the sea and bring YOUR ideas to life WITH YOUR OWN hands. Even if it’s clumsy, even if you learn from your mistakes in the process, but in this case you definitely won’t have to regret that someone turned out to be faster than you. After all, it is much more profitable to gain the necessary knowledge than to miss the “right of the first night” :-)

    As for the development of Facebook, I think the idea itself has reached its peak. Further growth is only possible purely quantitatively. And then only for a while. And then something new will definitely appear on the Internet and Facebook will become “one of.”

    If the history of Facebook interests you and you “don’t have the strength to hold on anymore,” then I advise you to read the book « » . In it, in an artistic form, the creation of Facebook is described in more detail. True, they are trying to make Zuckerberger white and fluffy, but this is the only drawback of this book.

    The Hollywood film tells the story of a Harvard student who needed a service to find and meet girls.

    This version is as far from the truth as possible, Mark Zuckerberg told Matthias Dopfner in an interview for Die Welt am Sonntag.

    At that time, Mark already had a girlfriend - Priscilla Chan, his current wife, and he himself was obsessed with the Internet. Google was a great tool for finding news, Wikipedia was easy to find the background information you needed, but it wasn't enough.

    “There was no service that would allow us to find out anything about other people. I didn’t know how to create such a service, so I started working on other, less universal ones,” Zuckerberg told Dopfner.

    He wrote a small app called Coursematch where people could mark what courses they were taking at university. He also created Facematch, as shown in the movie The Social Network. But as Zuckerberg says, it was just a joke.

    Instead, Facebook came about because one student spent too much time programming and too little time studying. This is the story of how Zuckerberg turned a study service into a social network. And why didn't anyone do this before him?

    But how did it become Facebook?

    Mark Zuckerberg: In the end, everything happened thanks to a subject called “Rome of Augusta”, it was a course in the history of art. There were different pieces of art in class, you were shown several of them, and you had to write an essay about the historical significance of these pieces.

    I didn't pay enough attention to the classes because I was programming at the time, and so when the time for the final exam came, I realized that I was finished, because I knew absolutely nothing about the subject.

    So I wrote a curriculum that would randomly show you one piece of art and you would have to point out exactly why it was important in terms of history. I sent this program to a general email and said, “Hey, I made a curriculum here,” and everyone started using it. And the program itself has become an excellent social way of learning.

    In total, during my studies at Harvard, I made about ten similar programs. I thought it would be nice to combine their functions into one application through which people could share anything with others. This is how the first version of Facebook appeared.

    How long did the development take?

    It only took a couple of weeks to create the first version of Facebook because I already had a lot of things ready.

    When did you feel like your idea could become something big?

    I remember quite well the night I launched Facebook at Harvard. We used to go out for pizza with a friend we were doing computer science assignments with.

    And I remember then saying that I was glad that we at Harvard had a network through which we could communicate, and that someday someone would make the same network around the world.

    Then I didn’t even think that it could be us. No one said, “I hope we can turn this into something big.” I had no idea that this would be our doing. We were just students. When I think back over the past 12 years, what surprises me most is that no one has done this before. And I ask myself why this happened.

    And really, why?

    It seems to me that there were always reasons not to do this. At every stage, people told themselves, “This is only for young people,” and no one worked on this idea as much as they could. Or “Okay, some people use this service, but it won’t make money.” Or “Yes, it seems to work in the USA, but it won’t work all over the world.” Or “Oh, it works, but it’s unlikely to work on mobile devices.” These are all excuses, as you probably know.

    And you just went and did it

    Yes. This was just the beginning of Facebook. Now, after 12 years of history, the company is investing in the technologies of the future, from artificial intelligence to virtual reality.

    Most people have already become Internet users. And this is far from the limit. Technologies are developing, more and more new technologies are appearing. Social media is becoming people's favorite. Through them we read news, communicate, exchange more important information and not so much. Most users create their websites on different topics: cooking, dating site, movie and music site and many others. But in those days, creating websites or social networks was a big discovery. I would like to reveal a lot of interesting things about the famous Facebook network, the founder and developer of which was Mark Zuckerberg.

    The young boy was born in the USA, studied at school, and then entered the university. Mark was passionate about, and new ideas were constantly born in his head. After some time, thanks to his talent and endurance, the young man developed the game “RISK”, but in an online version. Despite his budding talent, he did not accept an offer to collaborate, either from Microsoft Corporation or from the American media conglomerate AOL. Zuckerberg did not lose hope. He wanted to develop further on his own. And the plan was to create something new and unusual.

    Soon after, he entered Harvard University to major in psychology. And even then, I did not give up programming; on the contrary, I additionally attended IT training courses. While studying in a completely different specialty, the young programmer, together with his university friend, Dustin Moskowitz, began to implement an idea called . Mark wanted to create something that would make dating via the Internet easier for both young people and older people. He is a very stubborn person by nature. And if this boy wanted something, he will definitely do it, his mother says.

    And indeed, Mark Zuckerberg spent nights developing his project. First he made the cover of the site. Here's another interesting fact about shell color. Since the boy has been suffering from a disease such as color blindness since birth, he can distinguish colors very poorly, especially shades of red and green. That is why the young talent completed his project in blue colors, since all shades of blue are available to him. After the shell, Mark thought that if this page belongs to a certain person, then of course there should be a place where a photo of the main page would be placed.

    And only then, he came up with ideas about posting photos of both himself and friends on his personal page. You could also add videos or watch online. One night, Mark hacked into the websites of all the students and made sure that a video of what they were doing at the moment was displayed on everyone’s screens. In a way, it’s all like a live online movie. Everyone could watch this picture. Zuckerberg was sued, but everything worked out. The genius was still able to finish his idea.