Facehooked!

Facebook seemed to come from nowhere to everywhere in 2007.

One person in eight in the UK has become a registered member.

Why has Facebook been so successful against stiff competition from other social network sites?

And as the company tries to turn its popularity into profits, will its millions of members stay faithful?

The site was launched by student Mark Zuckerberg with two friends in their dorm room at Harvard University in February 2004.

It was initially intended to let his fellow students check each other out and make friends online.

By December 2004 it had grown to have nearly a million users among students at top American colleges.

It arrived in the UK in 2006 and by March 2007 was making headlines as more than a million people had joined up.

Now seven million people in the UK are on Facebook and there are more than 50 million worldwide members.

Full article can be read here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7151690.stm