Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website that was launched in Feb 2004. The name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that some colleges & schools give to incoming students, faculty and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. Initially the membership was restricted to college students but has been extended to anyone since Sept 2006. User can select to join one or more networks e.g. high school, place of employment or geographic region. It reached 55 million active members worldwide and 7th traffic ranking in Nov 2007. It is the number one site for photos in the US, ahead of public sites such as Flickr.

User with a valid email address can register a facebook account, for free. He may then join various networks (sometimes requiring to verify an email belonging to the network e.g. institution's email, or referrals from that network) and create his profile & photo album etc. I have registered an account using my gmail address and started to upload some of my personal photos, and accordingly invite all my friends here to login & be my facebook 'friends'. Let's keep in touch via facebook and have fun!