How Facebook Got its Start

Meta Platforms Inc., also known as Meta and formerly known as Facebook Inc., is a multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company is the parent organization of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp among other subsidiaries. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4th, 2004 with initial investments from Dustin Moskovitz (one-time co-founder), Eduardo Saverin (co-founder), and Andrew McCollum (founding president).

The History of Facebook

Like many of the greatest inventions, Facebook was the brainchild of a programmer-turned-entrepreneur. But unlike most entrepreneurs, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t sell his company to a large corporation for more money. Instead, he turned Facebook into a community by making it an open platform with an ongoing process of “monetization.” The ability to sell things to users was an entirely new concept, and it had yet to exist in the world of the web, let alone on the computer. There were no ads or pop-up ads, and there were certainly no websites with large sums of money making people rich overnight. A virtual commodity, such as virtual goods or virtual money, was a new concept with a lot of questions.

What was Facebook used for?

Facebook developed from a Palo Alto-based social networking service, Edu8 Balloons, into a ubiquitous social network with billions of users worldwide. Facebook is currently used by approximately 1.4 billion people every month. The social network was first publicly launched in February 2004, and by 2007 had acquired Myspace and gained popularity among teenagers in particular. By late 2009, the site had almost one billion monthly active users. By June 2010, two months after Facebook's IPO, the site had 10 million users in the United States and over 300 million users worldwide.

As of September 2017, Facebook has 2.07 billion monthly active users.

Facebook traces its origins to Stanford University's Social Virtuality Lab.

Why did Facebook become so Popular?

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes in 2004. The two engineers had no prior experience in the technology industry. After building a mostly viral website, they realized that it wasn’t ideal, so they made the switch to a more scalable platform model. In short, a platform is a technology platform with an agreed-upon set of rules. It’s a data-sharing network where users upload their data to use by other users, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google, among others. The ability to share users’ data via Facebook makes it the most scalable platform of all. Facebook, with its ability to make money off advertising (among other things), is arguably the most important application for the new platform model.

What does Facebook do now?

Facebook was originally a social networking website. It allowed users to post pictures, check-in at places, and even send messages to each other and was purchased by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 for $16 million. The website was considered a smash hit, and Facebook has grown to be the world's largest social media platform in the world. The company now has more than 2 billion monthly active users worldwide. In 2015, Facebook passed Snapchat as the most popular mobile app in the US and worldwide.

How has Facebook Expanded its Services?

Facebook has diversified its offerings over the years to cater to a wide range of demographics. Instagram, now the second-largest social network in the world, was first launched in October 2010. Facebook acquired the photo-sharing app for $1 billion in 2012.

What are the plans of Facebook?

2 big questions

1) Will Facebook always be free?

2) Will there be a paywall to pay for better privacy?

Mark Zuckerberg has recently declared that Facebook is for everyone. He has gone on record to say that the company will never charge users for advertising. However, Facebook did attempt to institute a subscription program in 2013, and the reaction was negative. People did not like the idea of being forced to pay for access to what had always been free. I suspect that it will be several years before we see another Facebook paid subscription program.

So you might ask, what is Facebook’s current status? In short, Facebook is growing, and changing very fast. Right now the company has two key divisions, one of which is social networking.

We covered another blog on Facebook that you would want to read. Click on the link below to explore!

Promote your Business through Facebook Advertising