Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004 as a social directory for Harvard students called TheFacebook. It expanded to other universities and moved headquarters to California, receiving investment from Peter Thiel. By 2006, Facebook removed restrictions and allowed anyone over age 13 to join. Today, Facebook uses a variety of technologies like PHP, MySQL, and services in languages like C++, Java, Python and Erlang to power its platform and allow third-party developers to build applications.

1. Let’s Come
INSIDE FACEBOOK

2. • Oct. 28, 2003: Mark Zuckerberg hacked into
restricted areas of Harvard University's
computer network to create Facemash.

3. • January 2004: Zuckerberg began to write the
basic software to create a universal Harvard
social directory, TheFacebook.
• Jan. 11, 2004: Zuckerberg registered
thefacebook.com domain.
• Feb. 4,2004: TheFacebook launched at
Harvard University.

4. EXPANSION
• March 2004: Initially restricted to Harvard
students, The Facebook expanded to other
colleges, including Stanford University,
Dartmouth College, Columbia University and
Yale University.

5. The First Investor
• June 2004: The Facebook moved it's
headquarters to Palo Alto, Calif., and received
an investment of $500,000 from Peter Thiel.

6. • June 2004: The facebook incorporated into a
new company, and Sean Parker, a co-founder
of Napster, took the job of president for the
growing business.

7. • September 2004: Facebook replaced its "User
is..." prompt with a "What's on your mind?"
question in the newly designed space for
posting and sharing status updates called "The
Wall."

8. • Aug. 23, 2005: The Facebook dropped its
"The" and became Facebook. Purchase price it
paid for the Facebook.com domain name:
$200,000.
• September 2005: Facebook added networks
for high school students. In December 2005,
Facebook reached 6 million users.

9. • October 2005: Artist David Choe began painting
murals at the headquarters of Facebook in
exchange for company stock. Today, the shares he
received are worth an estimated $200 million.

10. Finally opened for all
• Sept. 26, 2006: Facebook removed its
restrictions and allowed anyone 13 and older
with a valid email address to join. A news
feed and a mini-feed were introduced,
providing easier ways to see what your friends
are up to.

11. Started Entertainment
• May 2007: Facebook Platform launched with
65 developers and more than 85
applications. Third-party developers quickly
followed, building applications to integrate
with Facebook. Games such as Farmville and
Mafia Wars spread rapidly.

12. The Front End
How does Facebook work?
• Facebook uses a variety of services,
tools, and programming languages to
make up its core infr. At the front end,
their servers run a LAMP (Linux,
Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack with
Memcache. A structure

13. • MySQL
• For the database, Facebook utilizes MySQL
because of its speed and reliability. MySQL is
used primarily as a key-value store as data is
randomly distributed amongst a large set of
logical instances. These logical instances are
spread out across physical nodes and load
balancing is done at the physical node level.

14. • PHP
• Facebook uses PHP because it is a good web
programming language with extensive support
and an active developer community and it is
good for rapid iteration. PHP is a dynamically
typed/interpreted scripting language

15. The Back End
• How Does Facebook Work?
• Facebook’s backend services are written in a variety of
different programming languages including C++, Java,
Python, and Erlang. Their philosophy for the creation
of services is as follows:
• 1. Create a service if needed
• 2. Create a framework/toolset for easier creation of
services
• 3. Use the right programming language for the task