(source:google)
Facebook currently with more than 1.2 billion users worldwide is today marking a decade since it was created. This comes at a time when the biggest social media is facing stiff competition from other innovative social media platforms that are coming up.
The tenth decade however comes in just a few days after facebook launched Paper app, on January 30th 2014.This new app will enable users enjoy new designs for photos, videos, and longer written posts. Facebook users will also have the priviledge to customise Paper with a choice of more than a dozen other sections about various themes and topics-from photography and sports to food, science and design. The app will be available for the iPhone in the US starting February 3.
So ten years down the line, what are facebook’s major milestones since its inception in February 2004?
Initially, Facebook was first started as Facemash and was opened on October 28, 2003. The website was invented by a Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, and three of his classmates Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz. Zuckerberg wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a type of “hot or not” game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two student pictures side-by-side and let them choose who was “hot” and who was “not”
In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg began writing the code for a new website, known as ‘thefacebook’. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook”, originally located at thefacebook.com.The website’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but in March 2004 Facebook begun its expansion to other colleges and universities and in June 2004 Facebook moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, California.
In September 2004 Facebook introduced the Wall, which allowed people to write personal data on profile pages. Later on a lawsuit was filed against Facebook claiming that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for Facebook from a company co-founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
A year later down the line in September 2005 Facebook expanded to include high schools. Afterwards, in May 2006 Facebook introduced work networks, allowing people with corporate email address to join.
September 2006 Facebook begun letting anyone over the age of 13 join in. It also introduced News Feed, which collects friends’ Wall posts in one place. News Feed became one of Facebook’s most popular features.
In May 2007, Facebook launched a system for letting outside programmers develop tools for sharing photos and playing games. The system also created a Facebook economy and allowed companies such as game maker Zynga Inc. to thrive.
Facebook then agreed to sell a 1.6 per cent stake to Microsoft for $240 million in October 2007 and a month later unveiled its Beacon program, a feature that broadcasts people’s activities on dozens of outside sites. Yet another privacy backlash led Facebook to give people more control over Beacon, before Facebook ultimately scrapped it as part of a legal settlement.
March 2008, Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg as chief operating officer, snatching the savvy, high-profile executive from Google Inc. and a month later Facebook Chat was introduced.
In February 2009 Facebook introduced “Like,”option thus allowing people to endorse other people’s posts.
In June 2009 Facebook beat News Corp.’s Myspace as the leading online social network in the US and one year later in August 2010 Facebook launched location feature, allowing people to share where they are with their friends and strangers.
Two years later Facebook was faced with a bigger challenge, this is after Google launched a rival social network called Plus in June 2011. It was still at the same period that the Winklevoss twins ended their legal battle over the idea behind Facebook. They had settled with Facebook for $65 million in 2008, but later sought more money.
In September 2011Facebook introduced Timeline, a new version of the profile page where users could be shown highlights from a person’s entire Facebook life rather than recent posts.
In January 2012 Facebook made Timeline mandatory and in February 2012 Facebook filed for an initial public offering of stock.
A year later in January 2013, Facebook announced the launch of Graph Search that allows users to search anything their Facebook friends have shared, including photos and posts.
With an idea to bring content right to its users, rather than require people to check apps on the device, Facebook introduced the Home app for Android in April 2013.
Later on in June 2013, Facebook introduced hashtags, the number signs used on Twitter, Instagram and other services to identify topics being discussed and allowed its users to search for them.
January 2014 Facebook added Twitter-like trending topics and its latest development being the Paper App which was introduced on January 30, 2014.
