Facebook Faces Up

Facebook Faces Up

MT460-1 – Management Policy and Strategy

Heather Knapp

Kaplan University

Unit 3 – Chapter 2

Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to connect to family and friends from anywhere in the world, as long as you have access to a computer and the internet. Currently the number one social networking site, with MySpace and Twitter following behind, Facebook is membership-based and allows you to either connect with friends and family to keep in touch, blog, share photos, join and create groups, play games and share feeds (Gunelius, 2010). Originally referred to as Facemash when Mark Zuckerberg created it back in 2003, Facebook was originally a website that featured two photos of people, side by side, so that others could vote on who they thought was “hotter” (The History of Facebook, 2010). Once Facemash was shut down by Harvard, where Mark was attending school, he decided to recreate Facemash, and in February 2004, Facebook was created. (The History of Facebook, 2010). Facebook was never a website that allowed full access to everyone who wanted to join. Once Facebook was official, it was set up as a site for high school students so that they could connect with one another. Soon after being available to high schools and students, Facebook was also allowing companies to join and network among each other as well.

Facebook is currently facing some legal issues for a number of different reasons. ConnectU, which is a college-based social network, is stating that Mark Zuckerberg stole the site’s original ideas and concepts (Pearce and Robinson, 2009). What started as a college networking site has now expanded into a site for anyone to connect. While this has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages. Because of Facebook’s growth, many users are now complaining about more frequent shut-downs occurring, while others see the more current malfunctions as a type of security breach (Pearce and Robinson, 2009)....