Facebook is 20 years old: How a college student’s project became the world’s largest Social Network  

 Facebook is 20 years old: How a college student’s project became the world’s largest Social Network 20 years ago today, on February 4, 2004, a project started by college students in America, ‘The Facebook’, has become the most popular social network in the world today.
 
Facebook, which was born as a platform to connect college students in a network, has brought about many changes in the meantime. Here’s a detailed discussion of how Facebook has changed in 20 years:
 
Facebook public
 
Facebook was first launched on February 4, 2004 under the name “The Facebook” by Harvard University students. This platform, which started as a college project, gradually spread across the world through other colleges in America.
 
Accused of stealing ideas
 
Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of stealing the Facebook idea from Harvard friends Cameron Winklevoss, Taylor Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra. According to them, Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea in the name of helping to create a social network called Harvard Connection.
 
Facebook as a public company
 
In 2012, Facebook became a public company from a private company. At that time, Facebook became the largest IPO company in US history.
 
The company had announced 42 million, 12 million, 33 thousand, and 615 shares, for which the price per share was fixed at 38 dollars.
 
Buy Instagram
 
Around 2012, the social network Instagram became very viral. This platform became very popular after celebrities created accounts and started uploading their photos. It was a suitable medium for those who did not like Facebook.
 
Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars in 2012 to bring it under its control. Although Instagram is a part of Facebook, it was started to operate independently. Later the same post on Facebook
 
WhatsApp purchase
 
Facebook had already purchased Instagram, which emerged as a photo-sharing platform. Meanwhile, the Messenger service of the said platform was equally popular. However, it did not have the feature of being able to talk to anyone based on the phone number.
 
In 2014, WhatsApp, which has a feature that allows you to send instant messages based on your phone number, was garnering a lot of buzz.
 
Oculus VR
 
Facebook acquired Oculus VR, another virtual reality startup, in 2014. For that, the company spent two billion dollars.
 
Facebook bought the company to maintain its dominance not only in social networks but also in the field of virtual reality.
 
Facebook user study
 
In 2014, a controversy surfaced over Facebook’s conduct of a ‘mood influence study’ in the news feed. For that, the company filtered posts in the feed of 689,000 users and analyzed them.
 
Crossing the one billion user mark
 
In 2015, Facebook announced that it had crossed one billion users.
 
Added like and other buttons
 
Before 2015, only like buttons were given on Facebook. Just like X and Instagram have a love button, Facebook only has a like button.
 
The Cambridge Analytica Scandal
 
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is considered the biggest controversy faced by Facebook. According to an investigation, Facebook handed over users’ personal data to a data analysis firm without their permission.
 
Data leak of 30 million users
 
In September 2018, it was reported that the accounts of nearly 50 million Facebook users had been compromised. However, the company later informed us that the data of 30 million users had been leaked.
 
Misleading news
 
Facebook is counted as a medium for spreading misleading news. Facebook has been accused of failing to stop misleading and false information from spreading on its platform.
 
Increasing pressure from rival platforms
 
Since its inception, Facebook has faced intense pressure from rival platforms. That’s why there are accusations that Facebook is buying the platform itself to outpace its rivals.
 
Lately, short video platform TikTok has emerged as Facebook’s biggest competitor. Facebook’s main competitor is TikTok, which is popular among youth. According to various reports, the number of active youth users on Facebook is very low.
 
 
The ‘Gamble’ of the Metaverse
 
In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his main company from Facebook to Meta. However, there are many reasons behind keeping goals. Some have argued that Mark Zuckerberg kept the name of the company because the stain left behind the Facebook name will not be erased.
 
However, Zuckerberg says that he named the company Meta because the future of YouTube belongs to the metaverse (virtual reality). Two years after the company came up with the Metaverse concept, there are small signs that the Metaverse is becoming mainstream on the Internet. Recently, after Apple released its virtual reality device, the debate about virtual reality has increased.
 
Job cuts
 
Lately, job cuts in the technology sector have become commonplace. Due to the increasing use of artificial intelligence, giant technology companies have started cutting employees.
 
Meta also had the largest number of layoffs from the end of 2022 to March 2023.
 
Recommendation Algorithm
 
Facebook seems to have adopted the same modality as TikTok’s algorithm to attract users. As a result, the post richness of most users on Facebook has increased recently.
 
Meta has brought the facility to make Facebook pages as profiles and accounts as professional accounts.
 
Facebook is back to basics
 
Lately, Facebook and Meta have faced problems like J, but they are making progress in terms of income. The company had a good income in the last three months of 2023.
 
Compared to the last three months of 2022, the income increased by 25 percent during the period of 2023. Especially when the advertising market also reaches its previous state, Meta’s income is increasing.
 
In terms of virtual reality, there have been positive signs recently. It can also be seen that the company is improving in the area it has invested in.