Facebook

• is an online social networking service

• allows anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old to become a registered user of the website

• founded on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harward University students Eduardo Saverin,Andrew McCollum,DustinMoskovitz and Chris Hughes

• its name comes from a colloquialism for the directory given to students at some American universities

• filed for an IPO offering on February 1, 2012 and began selling stock to the public and trading on the NASDAQ on May 18, 2012

• joined the Fortune 500 list for the first time on the list published in May 2013, being placed at position 462

• considered the 5th most successful startup company of all time, by market capitalization, revenue, and growth

• In 2012, Facebook was valued at $104 billion, and by January 2014 its market capitalization had risen to over $134 billion