If you are on Facebook and love it, May 14, should be special for you, because if it wasn't for today we wouldn't have gotten the virtual space that we spend at least 2-3 hours a day on.
May 14 is the day when Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York, the United States of America.
Mark Zuckerberg was already a creator from a very young age. He invented and made use of Zuckernet, a basic computer network for his family, which used to allow his father's computers at the office to send messages to the ones at home.
Then during his Harvard days, he created a social networking website Facemash for the Harvard students that let the students rate their peers based on their looks.
"Were we let in for our looks? No. Will we be judged on them? Yes," read the tagline of Facemash, which the inventor had to take down following objection from the authorities.
Zuckerberg admitted that he created the website by hacking into House online facebooks and compiling ID photos onto his website, allowing viewers to vote for the "hotter" of two randomly chosen photos or rate the looks of students in a particular House against fellow-residents.
But within days, massive outrage led Zuckerberg, who said he never expected such widespread publicity, to shut down the site for good. By that time, according to Zuckerberg, there had been 450 visitors to the site who had voted on their peers' photos at least 22,000 times.
"I don't see how it can go back online. Issues about violating people's privacy don't seem to be surmountable. The primary concern is hurting people's feelings," Zuckerberg said. "I'm not willing to risk insulting anyone."
Later Zuckerberg apologized to Fuerza Latina and the Association of Black Harvard Women (ABHW), saying, "I understood that some parts were still a little sketchy and I wanted some more time to think about whether or not this was really appropriate to release to the Harvard community."
It took less than a week for him to create the site—and he chronicled the process in a journal published on the site itself.
And then came Facebook in 2004 and as we know the rest is history.
Since 2013, the 33-year-old CEO of Facebook started to withdraw only one dollar as a salary from Facebook. Not to mention, his shares are worth millions.
Just like some of the richest people in the World, Zuckerberg has pledged to donate 99% of his shares in Facebook for philanthropic works.
There have been several social media platforms, but not one could reach the kind of popularity that Facebook has reached and still gaining every day. Now, Facebook owns the most popular messaging app WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram and its flourishing every day. Certainly it has its faults and side-effects but still, it has sustained over the yeas and by the looks of it, Facebook is not going anywhere anytime soon.
