Journal #4, Feb 8

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/04/facebook.anniversary/index.html#cnnSTCText

If you were to walk on to a college campus today you would find that almost every single student would have a Facebook account. Facebook was created by 19 year old Harvard University student, Mark Zuckerberg, in his dorm room in 2004. He says he created a website where people could express the ideas and thoughts to help bring about change. Within the first 24 hours of the websites creation, more than 1,000 of Zuckerberg’s fellow Harvard students had joined the online social network. Within the first full month of Facebook more than half of Harvard’s campus had a Facebook page. Now more than 15 million users worldwide update their statuses daily. Facebook has become an epidemic throughout the globe. Zuckerberg said that Facebook has given people a safer and trusted environment online where they can interact and be more comfortable about expressing themselves. This website was a large part in helping President Barack Obama reach out and connect with younger, registered voters. Many companies and politicians are now looking to Facebook for the chance to advertise. Now Facebook is billion dollar conglomerate that is worldwide. And Zuckerberg, he is doing well too. He was just named to the 2008 World’s Most 100 Influential People list. Facebook today is worth roughly $15 billion dollars.
I am a proud user of Facebook. All my friends and even some have my family members have Facebook pages. It is still growing; more and more people are logging on and participating in this new epidemic. It just amazing how a 19 year old college student has transformed a small project to communicate with friends into a worldwide social networking system. Some things that Mr. Zuckerberg said, I just don’t agree with. For example, when he said it was a safer and trusted online environment. I have seen articles of people hacking and posing as someone else on Facebook. I heard that a man’s Facebook status was changed to say that he was stuck in Europe with no money to get home. So friends wired him money, but the man didn’t know anything about this and someone received the friend’s money. So although I am a proud user of Facebook and glad it is available but I wouldn’t put certain things on my Facebook. Facebook is still a growing conglomerate and will continue until the next big social networking system.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/05/facebook.impostors/index.html