Facebook | Social utiliy that connects people

Today there are so many existing social networking websites such as Friendster, Multiply, Bebo, My Space, and Orkut. But the leading networking site based on monthly unique visitors as of April of 2008 is Facebook. It was launched on February of 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, then a student of Harvard University. At first this site was exclusively for Harvard University students only, and then it expanded to colleges of the Ivy League, and then to all university students, and finally to anyone who is above thirteen. Now it has over One Hundred Million registered users all over the world.

Registration to this network is free. All you need is an e-mail account and a password. And like any other social networking website, you are supposed to fill in your profile and add contacts by inviting or receiving invitations.

The site’s appearance is a smooth combination of light intensities of blue, and white, and it is also user-friendly, placing most of the features links on the user’s page, as well as recent activities happening with your contacts and their statuses as well. Moreover, it is so much easier to keep track of events here because in addition to the ones already mentioned, the more important and more direct events that happen within your site will also appear in your e-mail, thus informing you of such events in case you more frequently check your e-mail than your Facebook account.

The site’s leading features include Messaging, Wall, Photos, News Feed, Gifts, and Marketplace.
All other social networking sites, of course, have the Messaging feature. It allows you to send messages to your friends within the network, and vice versa. It works much like e-mail messaging. In Facebook, if you have no message to send and you simply want to catch your friend’s attention, then you may simply “poke” your friend instead.

Facebook’s Wall feature simply allows other users to post texts or attachments to your “wall” – somewhat like messaging, only simpler and more direct.

Photos feature is another feature that is common to any other social networking websites. But unlike other such sites, Facebook cuts no limit as to how many photos you can upload in your site. You can only upload up to sixty photos per album, but the number of albums that you are allowed to create is unlimited.

The Group feature allows you to join groups or create groups within the network. Groups may range from common friends to common interests. This allows you and other users to have special bonds by being in groups.

The News Feed feature was then launched on September of 2006. This appears on the user’s home page and takes up majority of the page’s space. The News Feed consists of events happening around your circle of friends within the Facebook community, posted there in chronological order.

On February of 2007, the Gifts feature was introduced to the network. This allows you to send “virtual gifts” to your friends on special occasions. This, however is not free, and will cost you a dollar each. What would the gift mean, anyway, if there’s not the effort of spending at least that much?

And on May of 2007, Facebook’s Marketplace feature was launched. This feature allows you to post classified ads for the Facebook community to see – a little touch of professionalism to the site.

Link | Facebook.com

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