Most popular social networking service “Facebook” is a launched on February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University student Eduardo Saverin. Now, thirteen years later, the site has become one of the biggest websites in the world, visited by 1.86 million people a month! And this doesn’t include its other properties like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger just to name a few.

Membership id Facebook was initially limited by the founders to University(Harvard) students but was made available to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.

Why use Facebook?

Have you ever wondered why people like using Facebook? After all, there are already a lot of other ways to communicate online, such as email, instant messaging, and so on. What makes Facebook unique is the ability to connect and share with the people you care about at the same time.

For many people, having a Facebook account is now a major part of Life, much like having your own bank  Account and because Facebook is so popular, other websites have worked to integrate Facebook. This means you can use a single Facebook account to sign in to different services across the Web.Facebook is a heart of Social Network.

Facebook have some public features such as:

• Marketplace -Marketplace allows members to post, read and respond to classified ads.
• Groups – Groups allows members who have common interests to find each other and interact.
• Events  – Events allows members to publicize an event, invite guests and track who plans to attend.
• Pages – Pages allows members to create and promote a public page built around a specific topic.
• Presence technology – Presence technology allows members to see which contacts are online and chat.

Controversies Come With Success:

The controversy surrounding Facebook began quickly.  A week after he launched the Facebook in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg was accused by three Harvard seniors of having stolen the idea from them.

Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that Mark was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to The Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling in 2008  for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million at Facebook’s IPO)

Facebook Mergers and Acquisitions:

During this wave of extreme growth, Mark Zuckerberg has acquired 68 companies till date. Facebook’s largest acquisition so far has been WhatsApp Messenger, which they purchased at $19 billion in February 2015. Other notable acquisitions include Instagram and Oculus Virtual Reality ($2 billion in March 2014).

Facebook purchased Instagram, Lightbox, and Face.com, just to name a few. And don’t expect the buying spree to slow down. Here is a timeline of the companies Facebook has acquired (some you may have heard of but most will not be familiar), what they did with the product and employees of the acquired companies.

1: July 20, 2007 – Acquires Parakey

Parakey is the web-operating system that makes an image, video, and writing transfer to the web easier for an undisclosed sum. Facebook integrated the Parakey system into Facebook Mobile (app launched July 2010) and also acquired talent from the Parakey team.

2:May 18, 2010 – Signs 5-year Contract with Zynga

Zynga is a provider of social game services with popular games such as Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends, Draw Something, Farmville, CityVille, and more. Facebook showed their expanded commitment to gaming by entering a 5-year contract with Zynga.

3:July 8, 2010 – Acquires Next stop

Next stop was a network of user-generated travel recommendations, allowing people to give input on what to do, see, and experience. Facebook bought most of Nextstop’s assets as well as a talent for $2.5 million. Next stop’s technology was used in Facebook Questions, which launched July 2010.

4: March 1, 2011 – Acquires Snaptu

Snaptu is a creator of simple mobile applications for smartphones. Facebook spent between $60-70 million to buy Snaptu. Facebook integrated Snaptu into their company for their talent in order to deliver a better, quicker mobile experience on phones.

5: July 6, 2011 – Facebook Introduces Video Chat in Partnership with Skype

If you can’t beat them or buy them, partner with them. Facebook did the same thing with  Skype to improve video chatting within the social network.

6: April 9, 2012 – Acquires Instagram

Facebook’s most expensive purchase to date was photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion. Instagram lets users capture a picture, apply a filter, and share it with followers. Facebook is focusing on integrating Instagram’s features into Facebook while also building Instagram independently to provide the best photo experience possible.

7: July 7, 2012 – Yahoo and Facebook Cross-License

With Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson gone, the two bury the hatchet and embark on big partnership. Yahoo and Facebook agree to cross-license their entire patent portfolios to each other without money changing hands. The two web giants Facebook and Yahoo are entered into an ad sales partnership that will let Yahoo show Like buttons in its ads, and also spread ad placements across both properties.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  -Mark Zuckerberg

Shreyas Ranade

Shreyas is an experienced iOS developer holding experience of 1 year expertise in Objective-c | Swift 3.0