The Social Network: The truth about Mark Zuckerberg and his billion- dollar creation: Facebook. Will Stone COMP 1631, Winter 2011

References Mark Zuckerberg began his career as a programmer as a child, learning BASIC from his father, as well as from a private tutor (and software developer) David Newman. While still a child, Mark created video-games such as a version of Monopoly based in his school, and Risk, but with a Roman-Empire twist. Later, Mark even took a graduate studies course in programming at Mercy College, near the Zuckerberg home, while he was still in high school. Mark Zuckerberg:Early Life facebook HomeProfileAccount Search

At age twelve, Mark created a network for all of the personal computers in his house, as well as his father’s business computers, called ZuckNet. Additionally, Mark programmed a primitive version of a program similar to AOL’s “instant messenger”, a year before AOL released their messenger service to the public. This allowed his parents, his three sisters, and he to communicate via instant- messages on their computers in a time when this had never been seen. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg:ZuckNet

Along with a classmate of his at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, Mark created an application for.mp3 players called Synapse. This application used artificial intelligence to detect it’s users’ listening preferences and habits, and then made recommendations about which new music the user should listen to. Both AOL and Microsoft tried to buy Synapse, and recruit Mark to come and work for them. Instead, Mark uploaded the app for free and left to attend Harvard University in the fall. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg:Synapse

In the fall of 2002, Mark enrolled in Harvard University. Here, he met Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin, all of whom would soon become co-founders of what we know as facebook. First, however, Mark created another intelligent application called CourseMatch, which allowed any user to look at what other users had said about a course, as well as reviews, opinions, and ratings of certain courses. This application was also effective, and as a result was well-received and used, as it allowed it’s users to form study groups with other users who had taken the same classes. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg:CourseMatch

While at Harvard, after creating the application CourseMatch, Mark decided to create a website; this site was called FaceMash. FaceMash took pictures of students from the different dormitories at Harvard, and allowed the user to compare them by clicking on which one was “hotter”. The photos, which had an initial rating, would then have their rating adjusted with each “win” or “loss”. The site, although virally popular, was shut down by the morning succeeding the weekend in which Mark created it, because it’s traffic was shutting down the Harvard server. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg:FaceMash

Although FaceMash was a hit with many students, it was also insulting and degrading to many, many others. As expected, then, there were both Negative and Positive results of this site’s creation: –The negative repercussions of FaceMash saw Mark making a public apology to all who he insulted and/or degraded. –Also, an article was printed in the Harvard Crimson stating that Mark’s site was “completely improper”. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search FaceMash: Feedback

There was, however one universal positive which came from the backlash following FaceMash: The students of Harvard, after seeing this site, began pleaing to the university to create a centralized website that allowed the students to upload information about themselves, as well as photos of themselves and friends. In short, the students asked the University to provide Facebook for them. Harvard, however, chose to ignore the students’ pleas, and this propelled Mark Zuckerberg to proceed where Harvard would not… facebook HomeProfileAccount Search FaceMash: Positive

On February 4 th, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched a website with the domain This site, founded by Mark, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes, was the predecessor to the site which over 500 million people use today, known simply as: Facebook. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Thefacebook.com was a primitive version of today’s Facebook, in which you could merely look at friends photos, update statuses, and send messages. Additionally, this iteration of Facebook required you to have a student ending in and therefore was very exclusive.  A photo of the welcome page is seen here

During the summer of 2004, Mark, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes incorporated the website, and moved their “offices” to Palo Alto, California. Once they stationed in Palo Alto, they met Peter Thiel, (a co-founder of PayPal), who became interested in and invested into the company. That summer, Sean Parker, (who solely founded Napster), began to give Mark Zuckerberg advice on how to manage the company, and eventually was hired as the company’s first president. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Thefacebook.com:Palo Alto

In October of 2005, facebook.com expanded to twenty-one schools in the United Kingdom, as well as ITSEM in Mexico, The University of Puerto Rico, and The University of the Virgin Islands also saw facebook.com make the transition to High Schools across North America, with the condition that you had to be invited to join the site. Shortly after this, in September of 2006, facebook.com announced that it would open its’ doors to anybody over the age of 13 with a valid address. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search facebook.com: Expansion

Facebook introduced a photo-sharing service in 2005 that allowed it’s users to “tag” their friends in the photos. Five years later, Facebook now hosts over 15 billion photos, and has over 100 million added each day. On top of photo-sharing, other applications that Facebook has implicated are things like: –Games with rankings specific to your friends, –Facebook Platform/Connect, which allows users to program their own applications for facebook.com, and – Facebook Beacon, which allowed users to share their web-browsing habits on other sites with their facebook friends facebook HomeProfileAccount Search facebook.com: Applications

Although Facebook is an incredibly popular site, there have been a plethora of negative repercussions, and negative feedback associated with Facebook. Within six days of the site’s initial launch, Zuckerberg was faced with criticism of intellectual property theft, and was eventually sued by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, which was reportedly settled for $65 million dollars. Other lawsuits have been filed against Zuckerberg, but the details of these lawsuits have not been released to the public, or they dissolved in court. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search facebook.com: Backlash

In October of 2010, the movie The Social Network was released. This movie focused on Mark Zuckerberg during and following the creation of facebook.com from his “fun” site, FaceMash up to today. This movie also introduced us to other key figures who helped shape the facebook.com we know today, like Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Peter Thiel and Sean Parker. Although this movie was widely popular, and was viewed by many, it’s factuality has been disputed by Mark Zuckerberg and many Facebook employees alike. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search facebook.com: Portrayal in the Media

The question, now, is simple: After all of the glitz and glamour; the fame, and the fortune; how has Mark Zuckerberg changed? The truth is simple: Mark Zuckerberg is still, and always has been, simply, Mark Zuckerberg. As a child, he and his sisters used to pull pranks like re-creating Star Wars with props like garbage cans for the robots. Now, Mark still has his connected, caring attitude; the Facebook headquarters have no offices, his best friends are his co- workers, He even rented out multiple movie theatres to take his employees to see the movie The Social Network, and then took them all out for “Appletinis” afterwords, as those were his “signature drink” in the movie. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg: After the fame

Mark has also made two significant humanitarian contributions in the year 2010: –Mark donated 100 million dollars of his Facebook equity to help develop the Newark school system, in New Jersey. –Mark also pledged, at a dinner with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates in December 2010, that he would give away half of his personal income over the course of his life. facebook HomeProfileAccount Search Mark Zuckerberg: After the fame (cont.)

Facebook is currently used by 1 in 14 Americans. As startling as that is, over 70 percent of Facebook’s users live OUTSIDE of the United States. There are currently 550 million users registered to facebook.com; if you extrapolate the growth, there will be 1 billion members by next year. Of the 6.9 billion people in the world today, approximately 2 billion of them are registered on the internet. Will there come a day where everyone online is using Facebook? facebook HomeProfileAccount Search facebook.com: The Future?

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