Date of birth: 4th of February 2004. Mark Zuckerberg started the social network “The Facebook” (her first name „thefacebook.com”). He launched it as a high school network that had been expanded later to companies like Apple and Microsoft. The initial investment for facebook was $ 500 000 in 2004 from the co-founder Peter Thiel.
                          After this other investments were made in applications that had the important role to attract more users: platforms that interact with other web pages, applications to send messages, programs against spam and on-line games: chess, Farmville, games of strategy, personality tests.
                          In this moment, facebook represents one of the most disseminated social networks from the entire world. The users can enter and participate on this network from every part of the world as long as they are connected to the Internet. Facebook it’s part of the recent known trend called Web 2.0.
                         Facebook mission: “Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.”

Facebook= business

                        Social networks represent for companies a direct instrument of communication with the potential customers. They can learn about the tastes and opinions of their targets regarding the products and services that they sell. From this point of view, marketing and PR managers are the most interested.
                         The promotion through a social network it’s true art. The conversation must be like a dialog, a trade of information, of knowledge, not advertising posts.
2010 statistics:
- 307 millions of users
- 6 873 048 declared fans on the profile page of facebook.com
- 14 pages promoted
- Over 100 links that are promoting social responsibility, charitable acts and other important information
- Over 1500 comments for a single post on the profile page
                       In spite of the popularity and constant growth of users, the social platform hasn’t registered significant revenues until this last year. Mark Zuckerberg publish on his blog that Facebook has become a profitable company in the last quarter of the year, even thought it was planned for the end of 2010. The most important thing is, says Mark Zuckerberg, that ‘Facebook has become a powerful and independent service in a long run’.
                       In July 2009, the company has published that it had overtake 250 millions of users (growth of 50 millions of users in 2 months). That means almost 800 000 members per day. More than 70% of the persons with username on Facebook aren’t from USA.
                      The development of technology, software programs, the promotion of products, of special events, international conferences, training courses, youth exchanges are elements that make this social network bigger and bigger. This kind of promotion is cheaper and effective, it takes a lot of time and patience.
                        The need to be informed, to communicate or to belong to a group, even if it’s a virtual one, are needs that have been noticed and answered with a social network. Good or unpleasant events have been posted and promoted on Facebook: the earthquake from Haiti, the promotion of corporate social responsibility (CSR), events for charity, the promotion of demonstrations against the political environment from The Republic of Moldova.

Facebook -social network- it’s an instrument to make friends, to promote, to make a research ant to be always connected. So, maybe we will meet on Facebook!