Why Is The Name Facebook Called Facebook-How Did The Name Came Into Existence
The origins of Facebook have been disputed since Mark Zuckerberg, then a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore, started the site on February 4, 2004, as a Harvard sophomore.
The site, then known as “thefacebook.com,” became an immediate success. Six years later, the site has grown to become one of the most popular on the internet, with 400 million monthly visitors.
The backlash against Facebook erupted immediately. Three Harvard seniors accused Mark of stealing the concept from them a week after he started the site in 2004.
This accusation quickly grew into a full-fledged lawsuit, as a rival firm established by Harvard seniors sued Mark and Facebook for theft and fraud, kicking off a legal saga that is still going on today.
Some of the accusations leveled against Mark Zuckerberg seem to be legitimate, according to new evidence obtained by Silicon Alley Insider. It also indicates that, at least once in 2004, Mark used private login credentials obtained from Facebook’s servers to hack into Facebook users’ private email accounts and read their correspondence – at the very least, a blatant abuse of private information. Finally, it seems that Mark broke into the systems of a competitor and altered certain user information in order to make the site less valuable.
The main point of contention surrounding Facebook’s beginnings was whether Mark had entered into a “deal” with Harvard juniors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, as well as a classmate called Divya Narendra, to create a comparable web site for them, only to delay their effort while developing his own.
The Winklevosses’ legal battles were never especially successful.
Their claims were termed “tissue thin” by Massachusetts Judge Douglas P. Woodlock in 2007. “Dorm room chit-chat does not constitute a contract,” Woodlock wrote, referring to the arrangement that Mark had supposedly broken. After a year, the conclusion seemed to be in sight: a judge denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The parties reached an agreement to settle shortly after that.
But then there’s a twist.
Lawyers for the Winklevosses indicated that the hard drive from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard computer may contain proof of Mark’s fraud after Facebook announced the deal, but before the settlement was completed. They said that the hard disk included some incriminating instant chats and emails.
The court in the case declined to examine the hard drive and instead sent the matter to another judge, who approved the settlement. However, the likelihood that the hard drive held more evidence piqued people’s interest, and they began to speculate what those emails and IMs showed. In particular, it sparked new speculation about whether Mark had really stolen the Winklevoss brothers’ concept, screwed them off, and then rode off into the sunset with Facebook.
Unfortunately, no one knew the answers since the contents of Mark’s hard drive had not been made public.
However, we now have some.Over the last two years, we’ve spoken with more than a dozen individuals who are acquainted with various parts of this tale, including those who were engaged in the company’s founding year. We’ve also gone through some of the key IMs and emails from the time period. Much of this data has never been made public before. Mark and the business have not verified or authenticated any of it.
We think we have a more comprehensive picture of how Facebook was formed based on the evidence we gathered. This is the narrative that follows.
And what does this new information reveal?
At the end, we’ll provide our own conclusions. But first, let me tell you about the story:
“After I have all of the basic functions up tomorrow night, we can speak about it.
Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, all Harvard seniors at the time, were looking for a web developer to help them realize a concept Divya had in 2002: a social network for Harvard students and alumni. HarvardConnections.com was supposed to be the name of the website.
Victor Gao, another Harvard student, had been paid to code the site, but Victor begged off the project at the start of the fall semester. Victor proposed Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard sophomore from Dobbs Ferry, New York, as a substitute.
Mark was renowned at Harvard at the time as the sophomore who created Facemash, a Harvard-based “Hot Or Not” clone. For two reasons, Mark had already become something of a celebrity on campus thanks to Facemash.
The first is that Mark was chastised for making it. The service operated by scraping pictures of Harvard students from the university’s websites. It altered the images so that when visitors went to Facemash.com, they would see two photos of Harvard students and be asked to vote on which one was more beautiful. The site also kept track of Harvard students who were rated according to their beauty.
This enraged some on Harvard’s politically correct campus, and Mark was shortly brought in front of the university’s student disciplinary board. He was accused with breaking security, infringing copyrights, and invading individual privacy, according to a Harvard Crimson story from November19, 2003. Mark was not expelled, thankfully, according to the story.
The second reason that everyone at Harvard was aware of Facemash and Mark Zuckerberg was because Facemash was an immediate success. According to the same Harvard Crimson article, “the site had been viewed by 450 individuals, who voted at least 22,000 times” after two weeks. The average visitor voted 48 times, which implies he or she voted 48 times.
Victor Gao initially suggested Mark to Cameron, Tyler, and Divya because of his ability to create a very successful website. The Harvard Connection trio was sold on Mark and reached out to him. Mark agreed to meet with you.
They first met in the dining hall of Harvard College’s Kirkland House on a late November evening. Cameron, Tyler, and Divya presented their Harvard Connection concept, outlining their intentions to A) develop the site exclusively for Harvard students by forcing new users to register with Harvard.edu email addresses, and B) extend Harvard Connection beyond Harvard to schools throughout the nation. Mark is said to be quite passionate about the idea.
“I looked over all the information you provided and it looks like it shouldn’t take too long to implement, so we can speak about it once I have all the basic functionality up tomorrow night,” Mark replied to the Winklevoss brothers and Divya later that night.
Mark sent another email to the HarvardConnections team the following day, on December 1. It said in part, “I completed one of the two registration pages, and everything is now operational on my system. I’ll keep you updated as I fix things up and everything begins to work properly.”
These two emails sounded like they came from someone who was excited to join the team and get to work on the project. Mark’s emails to the HarvardConnection team began to alter in tone a few days later. They moved from someone who seemed to be working hard on the product to someone who was so preoccupied with academics that he had no time to code at all.
4th of December:
“Please accept my apologies for being unavailable tonight. I’ve received approximately three of your missed calls recently. I was attempting to solve a series of problems.”
10th of December:
“Because I haven’t had much time to work on the site or even think about it this week, I believe it’s better to postpone the meeting until we have more to talk. I’ll also be very busy tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll be able to meet then.”
After a week:
“Please accept my apologies for not being accessible for the last several days. I’ve spent the whole time in the lab working on a cs problem set that I’m still not done with.”
Finally, on the 8th of January:
I apologize for the delay in responding to you. This week has been totally consumed by work. I have three programming projects due Monday, as well as a final paper and a number of problem sets due Friday. Starting Tuesday, I’ll be accessible to talk about the site again.
I’d want to express my gratitude to “I’m still dubious that the site has enough functionality to truly attract attention and achieve the critical mass required to make a site like this work…
Anyway, after I finish everything else, we’ll speak about it.
So, what occurred to make Mark reconsider his stance on HarvardConnection? Was he so overworked that he couldn’t complete the project? Was he delaying the creation of HarvardConnection so that he could create a rival site and launch it first, as the HarvardConnection founders claim?
Our research points to the latter.
The following emails from Mark have been public for years as part of the litigation against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. What Mark was telling his friends, parents, and closest confidants at the same time has never been made public.
Let’s start with an IM conversation Mark Zuckerberg had with Eduardo Saverin, a Harvard classmate and Facebook cofounder, on December 7th.
“They made a blunder, lol. They requested that I prepare it for them.”
Peter Thiel, the former CEO of PayPal, is widely credited as the first investor in Facebook, having led the first official round in September 2004 with a $500,000 investment at a $5 million valuation. But the true “first investor” claim to fame should go to Eduardo Saverin, a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg’s.
What you need to know about Eduardo is that he was the Harvard student who wore a suit to class. He wanted to create the appearance of being wealthy — and perhaps linked to the Brazilian crime. Mark informed a buddy via IM that Eduardo, the “head of the investing society,” was wealthy because “apparently insider trading isn’t prohibited in Brazil.”
One Last Thought
Eduardo Saverin didn’t work for Facebook for very long: When Mark went to the United States in the summer of 2004,
