My thoughts this week brought me to Facebook. It's everywhere and anywhere, even on t.v. you see an ad and your told to check them out on their facebook page. There's even a movie coming out about this phenomena, which lead me to the question when or how did facebook start?
The network was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, it started at Harvard and was a paper that was passed around the class so you could get to know your fellow students, that is until it was introduced to the internet! Zuckerberg got the idea from his high school Philips Exeter Academy which is the school that was first to pass the paper around the student body.
The interest in facebook caught on quickly and soon half the schools in Boston were using it. Facebook was growing so fast and wide spread that Zuckerberg brought in Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes. Just four months after this merger they added thirty more colleges to the network. They relocated to Palo Alto and that's when Zuckerberg ran into Sean Parker co founder of Napster, together they were able to get an investment from Peter Thiel co founder of PayPal. This meeting paid off they were able to get their first investment for $500,000. After this investment and merger they had many companies after them trying to buy them out but they turned everyone of them down. In 2005 they decided to open up facebook to high school students, they then received a $1,000,000 investment from Greylock Partners and this enabled them to open up globally to anyone who had an email address. Facebook has now employed over 1,000 employees and growing.
Lately on the news there's widespread concern for members of Facebook that have become addicted. I tried it out last winter, it was fun to talk to relatives out of state but I started to grow quite tired of the friends who were discussing such trivial things as what shampoo they were going to try out. There were silly thinks like pass a drink? It did feel like high school all over again, and I just have moved to far past that period to go back. My personal time is so limited and so precious that I just don't make the time for useless conversation. I would much rather see my friends and family in person, pass them a real drink and visit about everything and anything. When you have to get a Cyber hug from someone, you realize that things have gone from personal to cold! It makes me worry for my daughter and her generation, will they have lasting relationships? Will they make real connections? Or will they not have the time or energy to visit with someone so they would rather let them know their at home, tell them what their eating for dinner or watching on t.v! Yuck!
I totally agree with you, and this is a really good blog you have wrote. The "personalness" in everything has gone out the door with such sites as facebook and myspace. But at the same since, with such sites as facebook I'm able to connect with people that I would of never ever been able to like 20 years ago with people who didn't have such available resources as facebook. Some nights when I can't sleep like now, or like before when facebook wasn't around I'd just head up to the local bar for some sort of conversation. Where now I don't have to go anywhere but right in front of my computer, and maybe to my frige if I want a beer and sit in the comfort of my own home in my pjs and have a conversation with whoever. Saves me the time, and also money of going out. Its a sin and blessing all at the same time.
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