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Facebook
Top 5 Myths About Facebook
BY
JONATHAN ATTEBERRY
If you've been on
the Internet for any length of time, you've probably come across one of the
hundreds of hoaxes that are floating around cyberspace.
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| Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, explains the concept of Facebook's social network. The site has grown from Zuckerberg's Harvard campus site to connecting users across the Internet. |
In fact, many of
these half-truths and outright myths have been making the rounds nearly as long
as the word "Internet" has been a part of our vocabulary.
In 1997, for
instance, an e-mail promising quick riches and a copy of Windows 98, courtesy
of Bill Gates, flooded Inboxes across the world.
Predictably, Bill
Gates wasn't actually parting with his billions to have people forward e-mails
to their friends.
A few years later,
Al Gore made a crucial mistake during his presidential campaign when he claimed
that he invented the Internet. Only he didn't.
In reality, Gore
claimed he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" in an
interview with CNN.
While that's still
a big claim, many argue it's a far cry from claiming he engineered routers and
laid fiber optic cables with his bare hands.
Clearly, the
explosive growth of the Internet has created a fair share of misunderstandings,
fabrications and myths, and now it's one of the Internet's most popular sites,
Facebook, that's stirring up rumors.
With more than 250
million users, it's only natural that some Facebook fables have taken shape.
Here are the top
five Facebook myths, starting with one that could make a lot of people very
upset if it were to come true.
5 They're Going to Start Charging for It
We've heard our
whole lives that there's no such thing as a free lunch, so it's only natural
for people to suspect Facebook might start charging for its service.
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| Is Facebook going to start charging for its service? |
This rumor seems
particularly plausible when you consider arguments like the one Slate magazine
writer Farhad Manjoo put forth in a column from 2008.
Manjoo pointed out
that if even 5 percent of Facebook users agreed to pay $5 a month for the
service (with the remaining users downgraded to limited accounts), Facebook
could generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in membership fees alone.
Fortunately for
Facebook users, the company currently has no plans to start charging for the
service.
According to a
Business Week interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook is
profitable and growing quickly based only on the strength of its advertising
revenues.
So while it's hard
to look in to the future and say with certainty what Facebook's business model
will look like, for the time being Facebook addicts can keep their money in
their wallets when they log on.
The next Facebook
myth also has huge financial implications, but not for Facebook users. Read on
to see why.
4 Facebook's Founder Stole the Idea for the Site
Mark Zuckerberg,
founder and CEO of Facebook, was declared the world's youngest billionaire at
age 24 by Forbes Magazine.
But years before
Facebook was a household name, Zuckerberg was hired to do some coding for
fellow Harvard students starting a Web site called Harvard Connection.
The Web site was
designed to help college students network with one another, a premise
remarkably similar to Facebook's.
The rest of the
story depends on whom you ask.
The students behind
Harvard Connection contend that Zuckerberg deliberately neglected his
programming duties so that he could create a site with the same premise.
Zuckerberg, on the
other hand, claims his inspiration for Facebook stemmed from Harvard's reaction
to Facemash, his previous Web site.
Facemash had a very
simple premise, allowing Harvard students to compare and rate pictures of each
other.
The instant success
of the site (for the few days Harvard allowed the site to remain up, at least)
gave Zuckerberg insight into the appeal of following friends and acquaintances
online.
From there,
Zuckerberg claims that, considering the buzz around social networking at the
time, the idea for Facebook was a natural extension of his previous work.
So what's the real
story?
After a lengthy
legal battle between the founders of Harvard Connection (now called ConnectU) and
Zuckerberg, the matter was ultimately settled out of court.
According to a
publication released from Harvard Connection's lawyers, Facebook agreed to pay
up to $61 million in cash and stock to close the matter [source: Kincaid].
While that's a lot
of money, it doesn't scratch the surface of what Facebook is worth today, which
explains why the next myth on the list has yet to become a reality.
3 [Company X] Is Going to Buy Facebook
For most
20-somethings, a billion dollars would sound like a lot of money, but not for
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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| Is Facebook for sale? |
After running
Facebook for two years, Zuckerberg entered into talks with Yahoo! to discuss
selling the company.
Facebook competitor
MySpace sold for $580 million only a year earlier and had more users than
Facebook at the time, so Yahoo! likely felt that offering a purported $ 1
billion for the Web site was more than generous [source: BBC].
Zuckerberg thought
otherwise, opting to maintain ownership and control of the company, instead.
It turns out he
made the right move; only a year later, Microsoft valued Facebook at $15
billion [source: Sloane].
Granted, Microsoft
had its reasons for pinning such a hefty price tag on the Web site, essentially
guaranteeing that none of its competitors could purchase Facebook as a result.
Still, an early
2009 internal appraisal of Facebook's value placed the figure at closer to $4
billion, an amount still well above the $1 billion offered by Yahoo! [source: CBS News].
As for selling the
company, the rumors seem to have died down for now.
In a 2007 interview
with Time magazine, Zuckerberg claimed that selling Facebook is "not the
core focus" for the company.
Instead, Zuckerberg
says Facebook is busy finding the best possible way for people to connect
online, which brings us to our next myth.
2 Facebook Destroys Your Social Skills
There's no denying
that Facebook makes it easier to connect with old friends and distant
relatives, but this convenience might come at a heavy cost.
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| Facebook makes it easier to connect with friends and family, but does this convenience come at a heavy cost? Do we undervalue face-to-face interaction as a result of using Facebook? |
West London Mental
Health Trust psychiatrist Himanshu Tyagi warns that because social networking
makes communicating such a fast paced and dynamic experience, people might
become desensitized to their real-world relationships.
Younger people
who've grown up with the Internet are particularly at risk, he says, since they
sometimes place heavy emphasis on their virtual identities and may undervalue
face-to-face interaction as a result.
Psychologist Aric
Sigman goes even further, saying that because Facebook enables people to live
an increasingly isolated existence, their health may suffer.
Pointing to studies
that illustrate how the body's genes and hormone levels react to personal
interaction, Dr. Sigman contends isolation puts the body at risk for a number
of ailments including heart disease, strokes and even cancer.
Fortunately for
Facebook users, not everyone thinks the site is turning the world into hermits.
A Cambridge
University study of Facebook users found that the site can be a useful tool for
maintaining relationships that might otherwise be lost.
Additionally, the
study's participants found Facebook useful for getting a better-rounded view of
their friends and family and ultimately felt that the site gave them more
options for how they interacted with others.
Of course, if the
next myth on our list has some truth to it, you may want to log off regardless
of how the site affects your social skills.
1
Facebook Is Going to Sell Your Pictures
While it's never a
good idea to post pictures to Facebook unless you don't care who sees them, you
probably never imagined that, even if you delete your account, Facebook could
use those pictures for commercial purposes.
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| Should Chuck and Josh be worried about Facebook selling their photos? |
That's the
impression that recent changes to the company's Terms of Service (TOS) seemed
to give, however.
The ensuing uproar
over the changes prompted Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to address the
issue on the company's blog.
Zuckerberg claims
the changes clarified the way sites like Facebook work, pointing out that even
if a user deletes his or her account, the content from that account might still
exist on other users' pages.
Accordingly,
Facebook needs license to share those images with other members, but only in
the way that users determine via their accounts' privacy settings.
Most importantly,
Zuckerberg insists that Facebook has no intention of selling users' pictures
for any reason, though he admits that Facebook needs to work on clarifying the
language to that effect.
