The rise of Facebook is phenomenal that it is giving My Space, the much bigger and established social networking tool, stiff competition.

Facebook is now ranked as the second largest social network on the Internet. Because of the rise in membership it has become one of the fastest-growing and most popular destinations on the Web. It has gone beyond the campuses of universities and colleges where it was originally intended by the founders of this social network tool.

For those who are not yet familiar with Facebook here is a description from its makers: "It is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.’’

Mark Zuckerberg was a Harvard sophomore student when he founded Facebook in 2004.

He was responsible for the writing of the code of the site. It became so successful at Harvard and with the help of his school friends they were able to spread it in other universities in such a short time.

During the summer of 2004, he and his friends moved to Palo Alto, California and decided to establish their office there. Right now, Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook and ranked as one of the richest young men in the world. Facebook has more than fifty million members and still growing that includes students and adults of all ages.

Difference from other Social Network

Although it contains the usual social network features like profile page and links to friends and acquaintances, it is different in a sense that its layout is clean aind uniform. It has implemented a spartan -like design that limits users options to change the appearance of profile pages. This gives Facebook the advantage of cutting down on visual clutter and threats like spam which is common to rival social networks.

Facebook Platform

Another distinguishing feature of this social network tool is its initiative called the Facebook Platform. Facebook has invited thousands of technology companies and programmers to create programs for the service. By doing so, they enliven the services of Facebook and at the same time earn money through advertisements. Because of this it has stimulated the creation of many social applications on the site.

There is now a proliferation of tools and activities for its members to enjoy. They are not just confined to the usual social network stuff like making online connection, sharing photos and planning activities. With the Facebook Platform, members are allowed to recommend and listen to music, insert book reviews onto their pages, play games like Scrabble, shop and join events, all without leaving the site.

Other Features

Aside from the numerous applications provided by third party developers here are some features of Facebook worth noting according to Michael Pick in his article A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook:

-- You can network with friends, colleagues and acquitances using internal email, private messaging and public discussions

-- Make status and presence updates using both in-house tools and popular third-party service like Twitter, which can be fully controlled from the Facebook console

-- Bring in live chat, voice messaging and one-click Skype calls

-- Import and share videos and create photo albums and slide shows to easily share your media

-- Quickly grab content that you like the look of from other people’s profiles and add the same functionality to your own

Members are unanimous in saying that the ability to aggregate the range of services that they use across the web in a single location is one of the best attractions of Facebook.