INTRODUCTION
Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 4, 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Incorporated. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Andrew McCollum, (graphic artist), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), and Chris Hughes. According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to “Hot or Not” and used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over.
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. With its availability on many mobile devices. Facebook allows users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It can also unite people with common interests and/or beliefs through groups and other pages, and has been known to reunite lost family members and friends because of the widespread reach of its network.
January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users. Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook