Twenty years ago, on February 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and a few college friends, including Brazilian Eduardo Severin, launched Facebook from the Harvard University campus.
Since then, the world’s most popular social network has been redesigned dozens of times. But its goal remains the same: to connect people online. And, of course, to make a lot of money from advertising.
Amid many criticisms – which have even led Zuckerberg to testify before the U.S. Congress – Facebook has changed the world in these two decades of existence.
Facebook ushered in a new online social era
Other social networks, like MySpace, existed before Facebook – but Mark Zuckerberg’s site took off instantly when it launched in 2004. In less than a year, it had a million users, and in four years, it surpassed MySpace – fueled by innovations like the ability to “tag” people in photographs.
In 2012, Facebook surpassed one billion monthly users. By the end of 2023, Facebook reported having 2.11 billion daily users.
It is a fact that today Facebook is less popular than it used to be among young people. However, it remains the most popular social network in the world.
Facebook changed the way advertising was done
Facebook proved that collecting information about what we like and dislike is extremely profitable.
Nowadays, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is an advertising giant that, along with companies like Google, holds most of the global advertising money.
Meta reported over $40 billion in revenue in the last quarter of 2023, mainly from advertising. About $14 billion was reported as profit.
Through Facebook, political debate became online
By offering targeted advertising, Facebook became an important platform for election campaigns worldwide.
For example, in the five months leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, former President Donald Trump’s team spent over $40 million on Facebook ads, according to a Statista survey.
Facebook also helped change popular politics – by allowing disparate groups of users to come together, campaign, and plan actions on a global scale.
But the use of Facebook for political purposes has been criticized for some of its consequences, including its impact on human rights.
Facebook initiated Meta’s dominance
With the enormous success of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg built a social network and a technological empire that remains unprecedented in terms of users and its consequent power.
Emerging companies, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus, were all acquired and boosted under the Facebook umbrella, which changed its name to Meta in 2021.
Meta now claims that over three billion people use at least one of its products every day.
And when it can’t buy its rivals, Meta has often been accused of copying them – to maintain its dominance.
For example, Facebook and Instagram stories are similar to a key feature found on Snapchat; Instagram Reels is the company’s response to the challenge posed by the video-sharing app TikTok; and Threads is Meta’s attempt to imitate X, formerly known as Twitter.
The next 20 years?
The rise and ongoing dominance of Facebook are a testament to Mark Zuckerberg’s ability to keep the site relevant for so long.
On its 10th anniversary, many media outlets questioned whether the platform would still exist on its 20th anniversary.
But the reality is that maintaining its crown as the most popular social network will be a monumental challenge in the next 20 years.
This is not only because the industry, as always, is changing at a dizzying speed – but because Meta itself is now striving hard to build its business around the idea of the Metaverse.
Artificial intelligence is also a major priority for Meta.
The company is, therefore, to some extent, leaving Facebook. Whether the world is, given its lasting popularity, is another question.
Source: BBC