AFP |
Key dates in the history of Facebook, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary in February:
2004
JANUARY: Mark Zuckerberg, a 19-year-old computer whiz at Harvard University, begins working out of his dormitory room on an online network aimed initially at connecting Harvard students.
FEBRUARY: Thefacebook.com is launched by Zuckerberg and three Harvard roommates and classmates: Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin, and Dustin Moskovitz.
Yahoo makes an unsuccessful $1 billion bid for the social network. Facebook adds the “News Feed” and opens up to anyone over the age of 13.
MAY: Zuckerberg moves to Silicon Valley and decides not to return to Harvard for the fall semester.
JULY: The new company receives its first investment: $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
2005
AUGUST: Thefacebook.com officially changes its name to Facebook.
2006
FEBRUARY: Viacom offers to buy Facebook for $1.5 billion but is turned down.
SEPTEMBER: Yahoo makes an unsuccessful $1 billion bid for the social network. Facebook adds the “News Feed” and opens up to anyone over the age of 13.
2007
SEPTEMBER: Facebook launches a $10 million fund to provide money to companies or individuals who want to build applications.
Read more: Facebook paid teens to track smartphone use
OCTOBER: Microsoft takes a $240 million stake in Facebook, which has 50 million members.
DECEMBER: Zuckerberg apologizes for “mistakes” in rolling out a new ad platform called Beacon that tracked purchases made by Facebook members and let their friends know what they had bought.
2008
FEBRUARY: A $65 million settlement is reached with twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss over allegations that Zuckerberg stole their idea for Facebook while at Harvard. Facebook launches a Spanish site.
MARCH: Sheryl Sandberg, a top Google executive, is hired as Facebook’s chief operating officer. French and German Facebook sites are launched.
APRIL: Facebook dethrones MySpace to become the world’s most popular social networking website.
Timeline pages are introduced that let Facebook users turn their profiles into interactive digital scrapbooks that tell the stories of their lives.
AUGUST: Facebook membership hits 100 million.
2009
MARCH: Facebook launches its first mobile application.
MAY: Russian Internet company Digital Sky Technologies invests $200 million in Facebook.
DECEMBER: In one of many privacy flaps, activists ask the US Federal Trade Commission to look into whether Facebook deceived users over protection of their personal data.
2010
MAY: Pakistan blocks access to Facebook over a competition encouraging users to post caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Read more: Zuckerberg sees ‘progress’ for Facebook after tumultuous year
JULY: Membership hits 500 million. Lady Gaga becomes the first with 10 million fans on Facebook, breaking the barrier a few days ahead of then-president Barack Obama.
OCTOBER: “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s story of the origins of Facebook, hits movie theaters. Nominated for eight Oscars, it takes three: best-adapted screenplay, original score, and film editing.
DECEMBER: Time magazine names Zuckerberg as Person of the Year for “transforming the way we live our lives every day.”
2011
JANUARY: A private share offering raises $1.5 billion from investors and values Facebook at $50 billion.
FEBRUARY: Facebook announces plans to move from Palo Alto to a sprawling campus once home to Sun Microsystems in nearby Menlo Park.
Facebook moves into its new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in Silicon Valley, with a rooftop park and “the largest open floor plan in the world.”
SEPTEMBER: Timeline pages are introduced that let Facebook users turn their profiles into interactive digital scrapbooks that tell the stories of their lives.
NOVEMBER: Facebook agrees to tighten privacy policies and submit to external audits in a settlement with US regulators.
2012
JANUARY: Facebook files for an initial public offering.
MAY: Some $16 billion is raised in the IPO, giving the company a market value of $104 billion. A hoodie-clad Zuckerberg remotely rings the Nasdaq bell from Facebook’s California headquarters on the first trading day.
AUGUST: Facebook closes a deal to buy the popular photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion
Read more: Facebook has ‘new tools’ against EU election meddling
SEPTEMBER: Shares in Facebook slide more than 50 percent from the IPO price of $38 amid fears on growth and profitability, but the slump will prove transitory.
OCTOBER: Facebook membership tops one billion.
2013
JANUARY: Facebook launches a “social graph” search engine to find posts on the network, in collaboration with Microsoft.
DECEMBER: Facebook is added to the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which represents the largest publicly traded US firms. Video ads debut in Facebook feeds.
2014
FEBRUARY: Facebook buys smartphone messaging platform WhatsApp in a cash and stock deal valued at $19 billion.
As Facebook nears its 15th anniversary, Zuckerberg pledges “public discussions about the future of technology in society” in his latest effort to address heightened concerns about social media.
MARCH: Facebook buys virtual reality headset maker Oculus in a deal valued at $2 billion. Zuckerberg predicts VR will be the next major computing platform.
2015
Facebook moves into its new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in Silicon Valley, with a rooftop park and “the largest open floor plan in the world.”
2016
NOVEMBER: Facebook and other social networks are embroiled in controversy over manipulation of online platforms by Russia to sow division and sway elections.
2017
JUNE: Facebook tops two billion monthly users.
SEPTEMBER: Facebook reveals hundreds of fake profiles evidently orchestrated by Russia bought ads to fuel political tensions ahead of the recent presidential election.
2018
MARCH: Scandal breaks that British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica stealthily harvested personal data of millions of Facebook users and used it for political purposes including helping the campaign that resulted in the election of US President Donald Trump.
Read more: Facebook shuts more accounts aimed at political meddling
APRIL: Zuckerberg is grilled in US Congress over Facebook’s handling of user data and the social network being manipulated to undermine democracy.
JULY: Facebook’s value based on the price of its shares reaches an all-time high of nearly $628 billion.
2019
JANUARY: As Facebook nears its 15th anniversary, Zuckerberg pledges “public discussions about the future of technology in society” in his latest effort to address heightened concerns about social media.
© Agence France-Presse