M A I N   N E W S

Facebook turns eight

Houston, February 5
Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site with an estimated 845 million active subscribers, has turned eight.

Since its launch on February 4, 2004 at Harvard University in Mark Zuckberg's dormitory room, the social networking giant that has changed our lives over the years has witnessed massive growth and is most likely to have one billion users by August this year.

While, the company CEO Zuckerberg is best known as the man who built Facebook, the company has three other co- founders, all college roommates and fellow students at Harvard; Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

The four initially built the service exclusively for Harvard students, but it was soon expanded to other colleges and eventually added support for students at various other universities.

Initially before it's public launch, it was called 'thefacebook.com'. However, on February 4, 2008, Zukerberg renamed to domain name and launched what we know today as 'Facebook'.

It now seems almost impossible to imagine life without Facebook status updates, friend requests, relationship statuses or photo tags.

Facebook has not only put Zukerberg in the list of top and youngest millionaires but also helped a lot of start ups, non profits and other companies grow, interact and increase sales.

In 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 US visitors in May 2011. In India, Facebook has registered a growth of 132 per cent this year. — PTI

845mn subscribers

• The website was launched on February 4, 2004, at Harvard University in Mark Zuckberg's dormitory room
• It has an estimated 845 million active subscribers
• The company has three other co-founders Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes
• Initially, the service was meant exclusively for Harvard students, but later it became popular the world over