Facebook flotation: History of the social networking giant

But the road that led the US company to
its position as a multi-billion dollar global powerhouse has been far from
smooth.

Now with nearly 900 million monthly
worldwide users, the social media giant rose from humble beginnings after being
launched from psychology student Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room in
February 2004.

The keen computer programmer had already
developed a number of networking websites for fellow students, including
Coursematch, which allowed users to view people taking their degree, and
Facemash, a website that asked users to judge students' attractiveness.

But it was Thefacebook.com - as it was
originally called - that proved the instant hit, allowing Harvard
undergraduates to create basic online profiles and display personal information
and photos.

Within a month, over half of the student
population had an account and soon after the social network started its
expansion to other colleges and universities across America.

By the end of 2004 young technology mogul
Zuckerberg and the early Facebook founders decided to move their headquarters
to the sunny climes of California and began developing the site after catching
the eye of a number of wealthy investors.

Facebook.com was purchased in August 2005
and the following month US high schools were allowed to sign up.

The buzz around the revolutionary website
has started to reverberate across the globe and its registration limits were
scrapped in September 2006, but the lengthy legal battles which have marred its
relatively short life span were already well under way.

Harvard student Cameron Winklevoss, his
twin brother Tyler and friend Divya Narenya, claimed Zuckerberg had taken the
idea for Facebook when he was working for them as a programmer for their
university social-networking site ConnectU.

The trio filed a law suit in September
2004 and following nearly four years of legal wrangling Facebook finally
settled for a purported 65 million dollars (£41 million) in 2008.

By this time the company's estimated value
had soared into the billions following investment from Microsoft and other
high-profile capitalists and it had set up an international base in Dublin.

The website's features had also
dramatically developed over the years with the introduction of the like and
poke button in 2009 and its highly popular newsfeed - which led to the first of
many complaints about its privacy policy.

In June 2009 the company overtook Myspace
as the leading online social network in the US, but Facebook is still dogged by
criticism over privacy issues.

It later went on to admit it had violated
users' privacy by getting people to share more information than they agreed to
before settling in court and making its policy more clear.

The meteoric rise of the site was
immortalised onscreen in the 2010 release of The Social Network which
documented the legal battle with the Winklevoss twins, who sought more money
after the 2008 settlement before finally ending their battle in 2011.

The film also focused on Zuckerberg's
relationship with co-founder Eduardo Saverin who was allegedly forced out of
the firm before taking legal action against Facebook.

The social media giant is now valued at
more than 100 billion dollars (£66 billion) and stands to reap up to 18.4
billion dollars (£11.6 billion) from the sale of hundreds of millions of shares.

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