Chapter 133 133. Facebook launch and emergency handling

June 1, 2003, today is the day when Facebook was officially launched.

As one of the public Ivy League universities, UCLA gathers outstanding students from all over the world.

As a student from a well-off family, Barry does not have to pay for his own tuition and he also has his own laptop.

I wake up as usual, and the first thing I do when I open my eyes is to open my laptop. Then I skillfully open Google to see what interesting news happened in the world overnight.

What caught my eye was a line of big words: "Facebook, let everyone be the protagonist!"

As an experienced surfer, Barry immediately realized that this was an advertisement, but it took up too much space.

Shaking his head, he clicked it without much interest and browsed through it, but found nothing interesting.

Then I exited Google and opened Yahoo, but the most eye-catching sentence on the homepage was still: "Facebook, let everyone be the protagonist!"

After hesitating for a moment, Barry clicked in this time, gave himself a fake name, entered information such as gender, age, school, etc., and came to his main interface.

He spent more than ten minutes reading the introduction and understanding how Facebook operates, and then he posted his first text update.

When he got up, washed up, and checked his notebook again, the exclamation mark in the upper right corner reminded him that there was new message.

When I clicked on it to check, I found two comments below the status I had just posted, along with a friend request from a girl. Of course, no one knew if the person behind the computer was a girl or not.

This made Barry feel novel and excited, as he had never had such an experience before.

To make an analogy, it's like when I was a kid and stole a phone to make a collect call to the customer service lady.

The friend request was immediately approved, and the first name appeared in Barry's friend list.

He left the dormitory with his laptop, his feet never stopping, but his eyes were always fixed on the laptop screen.

Barry discovered that through the girl, he could actually see the other person’s friends’ homepage and posted updates, and could add the girl’s friends as friends.

This means that if two people become friends, it does not just represent the two people, but also the huge network of relationships behind them.

Just like a neuron can send out countless branches, as long as you are willing to try, you can add a friend list full of 5,000 people, because Facebook currently only supports an upper limit of 5,000 people.

"Hey! Junior, look ahead when you walk."

Suddenly, a voice of persuasion sounded in his ears. Barry looked up and saw a sexy blonde beauty leaning against the pillar in the corridor looking at him.

"Lauralyn!"

Barry couldn't help but blurt out the other person's name. The beautiful girl opposite him was a member of the school cheerleading team, the dream lover of many boys, and a frequent guest in the boys' private dirty jokes.

"Do you know me?" Laura Lynn asked with a smile.

"Of course, who doesn't know you in this school?"

"Hehe, am I so popular? But I don't seem to know you. We are not even friends yet."

Barry thought to himself, all your friends are in the school team, and with my physique, I will be smashed if I go to the playground.

"Junior, if you want to be my friend, add my Facebook account so that you can know what I am doing at all times."

Barry nodded hastily: "I'm using Facebook, you see."

The two added each other as friends, and after waving goodbye to Lauraline, Barry happily continued walking towards the classroom.

As a result, he found many handsome men and beautiful women along the way were recruiting people to do promotion, some of them were members of the school team or the cheerleading team. At this time, Barry suddenly realized that it was another advertisement.

However, even though he knew it was an advertisement, he was reluctant to delete it. These school team and cheerleading members are all celebrities in the school. How could they have any intersection with him under normal circumstances? Now that he has them, he naturally has to cherish them.

Besides, although the time was short, Barry found Facebook quite interesting. The updates he posted could also attract comments from others, which made him feel a little happy to be the center of the crowd.

“Facebook, let everyone be the protagonist!”

Barry seemed to understand the meaning of this slogan.

The same thing was happening in major universities across the United States. College students, as the group with the greatest ability to accept new things, soon chose to join Facebook.

Eric did not go to MGM today. Instead, he flew to Silicon Valley early in the morning and is now sitting on the office floor where Facebook is located.

He, Fitz Heisenberg, Robert Mirren, and Howard Hughes gathered in front of the computer, watching the backstage data.

I saw that the original number of registered users suddenly jumped from "0" to "544".

Eric looked down at the time. "In less than five minutes, there are more than 500 new users. This is a very good trend."

"Because your promotion strategy is correct, boss, there is no better soil for the development of Facebook in the world than university campuses," Heisenberg complimented.

Eric smiled and asked, "How's the server going?"

"We are currently purchasing and have already placed an order. In fact, as long as it is completed within a month, I believe there will be no problem. With the current server capacity, it can definitely be sustained, unless people go crazy."

"Don't take it lightly. Always provide users with the best experience and face challengers. Only in this way can we remain invincible forever."

"By the way, Fitz, I suddenly discovered a problem. Although Facebook supports users to post pictures, whether using a mobile phone or a camera, uploading pictures always relies on a data cable or a memory card. Can we develop a software to make picture transmission more convenient?"

"Boss, do you mean throwing away the data cable or memory card?"

"That's right."

Fitz thought for a moment: "It shouldn't be difficult. We can develop a Bluetooth plug-in and build it into Facebook. Users only need to match the Bluetooth of their mobile phones and computers to transmit. However, there are also problems."

"What's the problem?"

"As for mobile phones, most of them now have built-in Bluetooth functions, but computers have a longer usage cycle, and some of them are more likely to not have Bluetooth modules installed."

Eric laughed and said, "This is not our problem. Users need to solve their own problems. We only provide a convenient path, which may stimulate consumption. Those electronic product manufacturers should thank us."

"Okay then. I will finish this plugin as soon as possible. It's not technically difficult and it should only take about a week."

Eric nodded. "Let's make this plug-in the first version update for Facebook. We must constantly release new content in the future. Once a month is the minimum."

"Likes, blocking, privacy settings, checking visitors, search engines, automatic friend recommendations, mini-games, I need you to slowly complete it."

"Don't worry, boss. I know what to do!"

As he was speaking, the numbers in the background jumped again, directly from 3554 to 15387.

Eric's eyes lit up: "Why did it suddenly grow so much?"

The technical guy next to him entered the database and started checking. After a moment, he turned around and reported, "Boss, Nicole Kidman registered an account and posted a dynamic. She brought in considerable traffic."

As a social networking software, Facebook requires real-name registration as its primary condition. Without this foundation, the sense of authenticity will be greatly weakened, so technology can quickly lock on to the target from the background.

However, this real-name system is only a broad concept. The system's internal program can only determine whether it is a person's name, but cannot determine whether the name is real.

For example, if you name yourself "狗屎", which is obviously not a person's name, you will not be able to complete the registration.

Your real name is Sheldon, but you registered as Leonard. Congratulations, you have successfully registered.

Facebook can only do this if it wants to truly implement a real-name system similar to the real-name system in later China.

It is necessary to connect to the federal database and pour citizens' social security account and other private information into Facebook's database.

However, if you think about it, you know that this approach is impossible and the law cannot be passed.

Moreover, Facebook has been sued and fined many times due to technical reasons that caused user privacy leaks.

In other words, it did not lead to any serious consequences, and the transaction was successfully completed.

The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!

If it is really connected to the federal database, what will be leaked is not just some insignificant mobile phone numbers and email accounts.

The real-name requirement adds a hurdle for everyone.

Big stars will definitely use their real names, which can increase exposure and publicity, unless they plan to use a secondary account to fight others.

For example, basketball stars James and Durant like to create smurf accounts to flatter themselves or curse others; Meghan Markle even created 12 smurf accounts to curse her sister-in-law Kate Middleton; the famous dog-stealing incident in China by Yuan Li was even turned into a meme.

Unlike big stars, ordinary people are more casual. No one really knows what is behind the computer.

Eric found a computer and sat down, logged into his Facebook account, searched for Nicole, and clicked Add Friend.

After waiting for a while, it didn't pass.

He added it again, but it still didn’t pass.

After trying several times, Eric simply made a phone call, and this time the call was connected within seconds.

"Nico, I saw that you opened a Facebook account. Why didn't I accept your friend request?"

On the other side, Nicole's voice sounded a little helpless: "Eric, is it really you? You don't know, since I logged in, dozens of Eric Coopers have wanted to add me as a friend, as well as other friends. I have no way of judging who is real and who is fake."

"I passed the first one, and after a few words, the person on the other end actually started asking for my photos, nude photos to be more precise."

"I was alert, but luckily I didn't send it to the other party in a rush, otherwise I would definitely be in the news tomorrow."

Eric understood instantly that it was a problem of duplicate names. Come to think of it, it would be strange if there were no duplicate names among hundreds of millions of people, not to mention that there were people trying to take advantage of the situation.

"I see. Remember my ID and search and add me directly. Bye. You reminded me of something that needs to be dealt with quickly."

After saying that, Eric hung up the phone and hurried out of the small room.

"Fitz, use our official account to send a message to everyone now, warning everyone that there are many users with the same name, so don't be fooled."

"If the other party asks for money, sensitive information, etc., be sure to verify it by phone and don't be fooled easily!"

Hearing this, Fitz slapped his forehead and realized that this might be a big problem.

Especially since Facebook was the first social networking software, and no one had any experience with it, if someone played tricks at this time, Facebook would definitely suffer.

The message was sent very quickly, and after more than ten seconds, the technical guy nodded to indicate that it was done.

Fitz sighed: "Now is the accumulation period of new users. A large number of new users will pour in every moment. You should resend this message every hour."

Then he looked at Eric and said, "Boss, is this okay?"

“Can you differentiate and only remind new registered users? Reminding the same user multiple times may cause them to get annoyed.”

"Sorry, boss, our backend is not that smart yet." Fitz shook his head.

After hesitating for a moment, Eric said, "I don't think this method is a good idea. How about this? On the Facebook login interface, under "welcome to facebook", add our reminder."

"As long as the user logs in again, this interface will pop up. If someone still falls for it, I can only say that such people are suitable for staying at home and playing Atari."

Everyone's faces lit up with joy; this was indeed a simple and labor-saving method.

"Fitz, there is another feature to be developed, which is the real-name authentication of public figures, including all current and future public figures who join Facebook."

"Whether it's in the political, film, television, music, or fashion circles, as long as users label themselves as public figures, they must request information authentication."

"After the certification is passed, you can add a striking suffix to the name, or other methods, we will discuss the details with you."

"Boss, what about ordinary users?"

"General users also need to set up a safety net. We don't care whether the other party uses a real name or a pseudonym when registering. But no matter what the reason, once the account is blocked, you must pass the real-name authentication to unblock it. If you pass, it will be unblocked. If you fail, it will be permanently blocked."

Fitz carefully noted Eric's request: "Okay, this feature will be launched along with the Bluetooth plug-in."

"Boss, thanks for flying here specially to take charge. Even though we have thought a lot, there are still too many issues that we haven't considered."

"Especially when faced with such a dangerous emergency, if you weren't in charge, everyone would be in chaos."

Eric smiled and said, "You can flatter less and do more. The problems Facebook is facing may also be the problems YouTube and Lionheart will face in the future. If they are solved, it will benefit everyone."

He then looked at Robert Mirren and Howard Hughes and said, "Facebook will be quite busy recently. You can come and help if necessary."

The two nodded in agreement.

At this time, the data jumped again, directly from 38453 to 56123, an increase of nearly 20,000 new users.

The background data is set to automatically refresh every ten minutes.

The reason for the crazy jump in data must be that new celebrities have joined.

Thanks to Luciferhx for the 200-coin tip, the boss is very generous!

(End of this chapter)