Facebook.com  was originally a social network only open to students at Harvard – where the founder Mark Zuckerberg attended. The site then opened its doors to students at other college campuses as long as they had a school-based email address (.edu). The site eventually opened its doors up to high school students in 2005. The website is now open to anyone.

Facebook is one of the dominating social network sites in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom and allows users to connect with other members through friends and through similar interests — which are “tags” in a member’s profile.

Profile
The Facebook profile looks drastically different from a MySpace page because all the content is very easy to read and organized in a systematic way. The information section lists the member’s favorite television shows, movies, musicians, and other items the person want’s to share. Each of these items are links which can connect the person with other people in his or her network with similar interests.

News Feed
The news feed section appears when a member first logs into their account. This section automatically broadcasts everything their friends have been doing within facebook.com. This has been a controversial element of Facebook, but Facebook now allows members to turn off their personal feed so that there actions aren’t followed by all of their friends.

Facebook Applications
One of the most popular features of Facebook that has been getting a lot of press is the applications section. Facebook applications are simply widgets that can be added to a member’s profile that allow them to perform certain actions with or without other members. For example, one application might allow you to have a virtual bookshelf that appears in your profile. This virtual bookshelf will allows you to display images of all the books you’ve read or are currently reading. Other applications might allow you to sell textbooks to other Facebook members. There are thousands of applications that can be freely added to a member’s profile.

Demographics
Facebook.com keeps increasing in membership and visitors. The unique visitor count is at 30 million as of March 2008. About 40% of visitors are from the United States.