Facebook is a social networking service originally launched as TheFacebook on February 4, 2004, before changing its name to simply Facebook in August 2005.[1] It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and college roommates and fellow Harvard University students, in particular Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.[2] The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League,[3] and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada,[4][5] corporations,[6] and by September 2006, to everyone with a valid email address along with an age requirement of being 13 or older.[7][8]
On October 25, 2010, entrepreneur and banker Rahul Jain auctioned off the FaceMash.com domain to an unknown buyer for $30,201.[9][10]