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The per university rollout of Facebook was genius. Actually keeping people from signing up until there is critical mass is, I suspect, crucial for building a social network.

There's nothing to discourage me from coming back quite like the feeling of signing up and finding out I'm the only one I know.

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Well it was based off Harvard's yearbook which was called facebook. At least that was my understanding.

A "face book" is a generic term for a student directory.

Back in my day we just called it the student directory. Didn't have photos in any I'd seen as a kid/college student, those were only in yearbooks.

Not just a Harvard thing. A "facebook" or "lookbook" was a pretty common term both in and out of academia. It's still used in the fashion industry.

If facebook were that common, trademarking would have seemingly been a bit more difficult.

Having photos in student directories doesn't seem like a common thing.

Depends on your criteria for common, but it was certainly not unique. We had them at the non-Harvard university I attended and IIRC, it was colloquially called the "freshman face book".

Commonality isn't always a roadblock to trademarking.

Windows and Apple are two other examples. It definitely restricts the scope of the mark, but websites were new in all industries, just like software was when Microsoft and Apple got their TMs.

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