Is Facebook a Stolen Business Idea?
On October 1st, The Social Network, a film about how Facebook has been able to attain more than 500 million users within six and a half years since its start in 2004 in a dormitory at Harvard University, is coming out. In its September 26th issue, The Washington Post introduced the “truth” about the rumors regarding Facebook by looking at the movie’s inspiration, The Accidental Billionaires. Even though it is known as Mark Zuckerberg’s creation for Harvard students, he, in fact, started his own business independently while he was assisting senior students working on a similar service called, Harvard Connection. This site was influenced by existing social networking sites such as Friendster and Club Nexus. Feeling betrayed, the students sued Zuckerberg for stealing their idea. As compensation for reaching a compromise with plaintiffs, Zuckerberg offered the seniors stocks worth tens of millions of dollars.
Though Facebook first admitted adult members in 2006, more than two thirds of the 134 million American users are over 27 years old. Middle aged women are also increasingly using Facebook. In many countries, Facebook has become the center of social life. It has replaced e-mail for people within elite Italian classes and Columbian workers. Out of the 30 billion internet users in Indonesia, 27.8 billion people are Facebook users.
When Facebook added its NewsFeed function (which shows new information about users to all of their Facebook friends in real time), there was a controversy about the invasion of privacy. However, the function has become the increasingly popular.
The Washington Post also noted that Mark Zuckerberg wants to be perceived not as a businessman, but as a social revolutionist who creates tools to change the world. He believes that Facebook has provided the infrastructure for global social networking.
Photo Courtesy of esquerra
@ 8:50 am darrylp said:
Whether facebook was a stolen idea or an original, brilliant idea we cannot deny the fact that it has let behind all the other social networking sites. Facebook is the most successful social networking site, according to a July report from nickburcher site, facebook have more than 400M users!! That is enormous, just too massive. The USA tops the charts followed by UK and Indonesia. Maybe it's the features and it's functions which attracts users to facebook. Besides keeping in touch with friends with real details the users can advertise their business too whereas this marketing facility is not available in other sites like Twitter or other social networking sites. So facebook have valid points to be on the top.
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