| Mark Zuckerberg | |
|---|---|
 Zuckerberg at the 37th G8 summit in 2011. | |
| Born | Mark Elliot Zuckerberg May 14, 1984 [1] White Plains, New York, U.S. |
| Residence | Palo Alto, California, U.S.[2] |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Alma mater | Phillips Exeter Academy Harvard University (dropped out) |
| Occupation | CEO/President of Facebook (24% shareholder in 2010)[3] |
| Known for | Co-founding Facebook in 2004; becoming world's youngest billionaire as of 2008[4] |
| Net worth |  US$17.5 billion (2011)[5] |
| Relatives | Randi, Donna and Arielle (sisters) |
| Awards | TIME Person of the Year 2010 |
Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (while at Harvard) who ran it as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Within months, Facebook and its core idea spread across the dorm rooms of Harvard where it was very well received. Soon enough, it was extended to Stanford and Yale where, like Harvard, it was widely endorsed.
Before he knew it, Mark Zuckerberg was joined by two other fellow Harvard-students – Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes – to help him grow the site to the next level. Only months later when it was officially a national student network phenomenon, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to pursue their dreams and run Facebook full time. In August 2005, thefacebook was officially called Facebook and the domain facebook.com was purchased for a reported $200,000.
PARTNERS OF FACEBOOK
The ownership percentages of the company are as follows:
- Mark Zuckerberg: 24%
- Accel Partners: 10%
- Digital Sky Technologies: 10%
- Dustin Moskovitz: 6%
- Eduardo Saverin: 5%
- Sean Parker: 4%
- Peter Thiel: 3%
- Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners: between 1 to 2% each
- Microsoft: 1.3%
FACEBOOK IS CHANGED TO FB.COM
Facebook acquired the domain name fb.com on November 15, 2010, from the American Farm Bureau Federation for an undisclosed amount. On January 11, 2011, the Farm Bureau disclosed $8.5 million in "domain sales income", making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.
FACEBOOK AS SOCIAL NETWORKING
A movie based on Zuckerberg and the founding years of Facebook, called The Social Network was released on October 1, 2010, and stars Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. After Zuckerberg was told about the film, he responded, "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive."[69] Also, after the film's script was leaked on the Internet and it was apparent that the film would not portray Zuckerberg in a wholly positive light, he stated that he wanted to establish himself as a "good guy".[70] The film is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, which the book's publicist once described as "big juicy fun" rather than "reportage."[71] The film's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told New York magazine, "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling", adding, "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?"[72]
Upon winning the Golden Globes award for Best Picture on January 16, 2011, producer Scott Rudin thanked Facebook and Zuckerberg "for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor through which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other.”[73]Sorkin, who won for Best Screenplay, retracted some of the impressions given in his script:[74]
- "I wanted to say to Mark Zuckerberg tonight, if you're watching, Rooney Mara's character makes a prediction at the beginning of the movie. She was wrong. You turned out to be a great entrepreneur, a visionary, and an incredible altruist."
On January 29, 2011, Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, which was being hosted by Jesse Eisenberg. They both said it was the first time they ever met.[75] Eisenberg asked Zuckerberg, who had been critical of his portrayal by the film, what he thought of the movie. Zuckerberg replied, "It was interesting."[76] In a subsequent interview about their meeting, Eisenberg explains that he was "nervous to meet him, because I had spent now, a year and a half thinking about him. . ." He adds, "Mark has been so gracious about something that’s really so uncomfortable....The fact that he would do SNL and make fun of the situation is so sweet and so generous. It’s the best possible way to handle something that, I think, could otherwise be very uncomfortable."[77][78]
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
Early years
Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software as a child in middle school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Newman calls him a "prodigy," adding that it was "tough to stay ahead of him." Zuckerberg also took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while he was still in high school. He enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. In one such program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet," which allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate by pinging each other. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year.[2]
According to writer Jose Antonio Vargas, "some kids played computer games. Mark created them." Zuckerberg himself recalls this period: "I had a bunch of friends who were artists. They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it." However, notes Vargas, Zuckerberg was not a typical "geek-klutz," as he later became captain of his prep school fencing team and earned a classics diploma. Napster employee Sean Parker, a close friend, notes that Zuckerberg was "really into Greek odysseys and all that stuff,” recalling how he once quoted lines from the Latin epic poem Aeneid, by Virgil, during a Facebook product conference.[2]
During Zuckerberg's high school years, under the company name Intelligent Media Group, he built a music player called the Synapse Media Player that used artificial intelligence to learn the user's listening habits, which was posted to Slashdot[28] and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine.[29] Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase Synapse and recruit Zuckerberg, but he chose instead to enroll at Harvard University in September 2002.
Harvard years
By the time he began classes at Harvard, he had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy," notes Vargas. He studied psychology and computer science as well as belonging to Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity.[2][9][30][31] In his sophomore year, he wrote a program he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and also to help them form study groups. A short time later, he created a different program he initially called Facemash that let students select the best looking person from a choice of photos. According to Zuckerberg's roommate at the time, Arie Hasit, "he built the site for fun." Hasit explains:
We had books called Face Books, which included the names and pictures of everyone who lived in the student dorms. At first, he built a site and placed two pictures, or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was "hotter" and according to the votes there would be a ranking.[32]
The site went up over a weekend, but by Monday morning the college shut it down because its popularity had overwhelmed Harvard's server and prevented students from accessing the Internet. In addition, many students complained that their photos were being used without permission. Zuckerberg apologized publicly, and the student paper ran articles stating that his site was "completely improper."[32]
Around the time of Facemash, however, students were requesting that the university develop an internal website that would include similar photos and contact details. According to Hasit, "Mark heard these pleas and decided that if the university won't do something about it, he will, and he would build a site that would be even better than what the university had planned."
THE WORLD'S FACEBOOK RELATIONSHIP
FACEBOOK USERS
STATISTICS BY CONTINENTS
| FACEBOOK USAGE AND INTERNET STATISTICS FOR JUNE 30, 2011 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic World Regions |
Population
( 2011 Est.) |
FB Users
Aug. 31, 2010 |
FB Users
June 30, 2011 |
FB Growth
(10 Months) |
Facebook
Penetration | |
| Asia | 3,879,740,877 | 93,584,580 | 152,957,480 | 59,372,900 | 3.9 % | |
| Africa | 1,037,524,058 | 17,607,440 | 30,665,460 | 13,058,020 | 3.0 % | |
| Europe | 816,426,346 | 162,104,640 | 208,907,040 | 46,802,400 |
25.6 %
| |
| Latin America | 555,856,161 | 68,189,920 | 115,288,940 | 47,099,020 | 20.7 % | |
| North America | 347,394,870 | 149,054,040 | 167,999,540 | 18,945,500 | 48.4 % | |
| Middle East | 216,258,843 | 11,698,120 | 16,125,180 | 4,240,946 | 7.5 % | |
| The Caribbean | 41,427,004 | 3,925,060 | 5,903,520 | 1,978,460 | 14.3 % | |
| Oceania / Australia | 35,426,995 | 11,596,660 | 12,881,560 | 1,284,900 | 36.4 % | |
| WORLD TOTAL | 6,930,055,154 | 517,760,460 | 710,728,720 | 192,968,260 | 10.3 % | |
NOTES: (1) Facebook (FB) User Statistics and Facebook Penetration in the World for June 30, 2011, according to off
| ||||||
TOP 10 COUNTRIES USING FACEBOOK
facebook blocked countries
Malaysia would probably join the many other countries that banned Facebook because according to an UMNO (United Malays National Organization) Supreme Council member, Datuk Seri Dr Shahidan Kassim, Facebook has been used as a platform to bash Islam and political figures in Malaysia. He claimed that this misuse of Facebook would pose serious internal security problems within Malaysia.
This move would certainly cause quite an outcry because Facebook is the most popular social networking website in Malaysia. Everywhere I go, whether it’s at the mall or a cyber cafe, I can see people logging into their Facebook account.
Facebook has been blocked at many workplaces in Malaysia but if the employees bring their own laptop and has a mobile internet connection, they’re still able to log into Facebook. This does cause some serious problems at workplaces where employees are busy updating their status on Facebook.
Facebook has no moderator and that is part of the problem. Members can pose hate pages which bash other people and religions. The religion that seems to be the brunt of most bashing seems to be Islam and that is why countries like Pakistan, Syria, Iran,Uzbekistan and Bangladesh which are Islamic states have banned Facebook. The People’s Republic of China and Vietnam too have joined these countries that banned Facebook and soon Malaysia too might be joining the list.
Unless Facebook takes action to control their website from being a platform to encourage irresponsible bashing, I think a lot more countries will joined these countries that banned Facebook.
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