Most of Facebook's revenues comes from advertising. Microsoft is Facebook's exclusive partner for serving  and as such Facebook only serves advertisements that exist in Microsoft's . According to , an internet  company, Facebook collects as much data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft, but considerably less than  In 2010, the security team began expanding its efforts to counter threats and terrorism from users. On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched , which was an ultimately failed attempt to advertise to friends of users using the knowledge of what purchases friends made.
Facebook generally has a lower  (CTR) for advertisements than most major websites. For banner advertisements, they have generally received one-fifth the number of clicks on Facebook compared to the Web as a whole. This means that a smaller percentage of Facebook's users click on advertisements than many other large websites. For example, whileusers click on the first advertisement for search results an average of 8% of the time (80,000 clicks for every one million searches) Facebook's users click on advertisements an average of 0.04% of the time (400 clicks for every one million pages).
Sarah Smith, who was Facebook's Online Sales Operations Manager, confirmed that successful  can have clickthrough rates as low as 0.05% to 0.04%, and that CTR for ads tend to fall within two weeks.Competing social network 's CTR, in comparison, is about 0.1%, 2.5 times better than Facebook's but still low compared to many other websites. Explanations for Facebook's low CTR include the fact that Facebook's users are more technologically savvy and therefore use  software to hide advertisements, the users are younger and therefore are better at ignoring advertising messages, and that on MySpace, users spend more time browsing through content while on Facebook, users spend their time communicating with friends and therefore have their attention diverted away from advertisements.

Facebook is a sosial networking website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc., with more than 500 million active users in July 2010. Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college. The website's name stems from the books given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better. Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be aged 13 or older to become a member of the website.
Facebook was founded by  with his college roommates and fellow computer science students   and . The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the, and  It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.
Facebook has met with some . It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Pakistan, Syria, the , and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service. Facebook's privacy has also been an issue, and the safety of their users has been compromised several times. Facebook settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property. The site has also been involved in controversy over the sale of fans and friends.
A January 2009 study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.  put it on its end-of-the-decade 'best-of' list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"

Facebook   users   do   not   realize   how   vulnerable   their   information   is,   according   to   Ari   Melber   in   “About   Facebook.“   Melber   states   that   face   book   has   over   58   million   active   members.   Between   those   58   million   members   there   are   more   than   2.7   billion   photos   posted,   and   more   than   2.2   billion   digital   labels.   All   photos   posted   on   facebook   are   property   of   Facebook.   The   photos   can   be   used   for   advertising   bulletins.   Even   those   who   terminate   their   membership   still   leave   their   pictures   and   digital   labels   posted   online.   If   you   die   Facebook   keeps   your   member   profile   in   archives   to   be   accessed   and   mourned   by   other   Facebook   users,   including   your   pictures.

All   Facebook   members   have   the   right   to   limit   the   access   others   have   to   their   profile,   but   most   just   choose   the   default   setting.   “Why   do   young   people   publicize   the   very   information   they   want   to   keep   private?“   Asked   melber.   According   to   a   study   done   by   Carnegie   Mellon   one   third   of   students   didn’t   know   how   easy   it   is   for   non   students   to   access   their   profile.   Thirty   percent   of   students   didn’t   even   know   they   could   limit   access   to   their   profile.   Four   out   of   every   five   people   give   access   to   everybody   by   choosing   just     default   settings.

Facebook is making waves on the webosphere as the newest and greatest social networking site. Compared to the likes of Bebo and Myspace, Facebook is setting itself above the standard by introducing a number of new and unique features to this type of site. Probably its greatest calling card however, is its API. And we’re not talking surface details either. The Facebook API gives developers unusually deep access into its structure which allows 3rd party applications to access and code around the Facebook structure. Its a great feature that surprisingly wasn’t thought of by its competitors and so far it’s proving to be the key factor in Facebook’s success.

Facebook 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.

Some other cool features include the Marketplace - where you can buy and sell your goods within the network, Photo Albums, Events calendar and the ability to join numerous Groups - collections of users brought together by a common interest. I also love the mini-RSS feed that is displayed on each users ‘dashboard’ that records each action performed by that user on the network. Nice work.
Personally, I’ve always struggled a little to get overly enthralled with this type of social networking site. Maybe its because I’m a designer/developer and I have the means to create my own website, but nonetheless, the features offered by facebook make having a personal space on the web that much easier.