Facebook Birthday: Social Network Turns 8

Facebook turns 8

Houston, February 5

Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site with an estimated 845 million active subscribers, has turned eight.

Since its launch on February 4, 2004 at Harvard University in Mark Zuckberg's dormitory room, the social networking giant that has changed our lives over the years has witnessed massive growth and is most likely to have one billion users by August this year.

While, the company CEO Zuckerberg is best known as the man who built Facebook, the company has three other co- founders, all college roommates and fellow students at Harvard; Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

The four initially built the service exclusively for Harvard students, but it was soon expanded to other colleges and eventually added support for students at various other universities.

Initially before it's public launch, it was called 'thefacebook.com'. However, on February 4, 2008, Zukerberg renamed to domain name and launched what we know today as 'Facebook'.

It now seems almost impossible to imagine life without Facebook status updates, friend requests, relationship statuses or photo tags.

Facebook has not only put Zukerberg in the list of top and youngest millionaires but also helped a lot of start ups, non profits and other companies grow, interact and increase sales.

In January 2009, Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.

Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique US visitors in May 2011. In India, Facebook has registered a growth of 132 per cent this year.

845mn SUBSCRIBERS

• The website was launched on February 4, 2004, at Harvard University in Mark Zuckberg's dormitory room
• It has an estimated 845 million active subscribers
• The company has three other co-founders Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes
• Initially, the service was meant exclusively for Harvard students, but later it became popular the world over

After Google, Facebook is the most visited site in the world and may reach as many as 1 billion members by August, notes Mashable.

On February 1, the company filed a Form S-1 with the SEC in preparation for an IPO worth $5 billion. Some speculate that once Facebook begins trading publicly, it could be valued as high as $100 billion.

According to Facebook's S-1, the company pulled in a whopping $1 billion in net profit on $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011. But much of Facebook's success has come from building a better user experience and resisting the temptation to make fast money. Indeed, the S-1 featured a section titled "The Hacker Way," a declaration by Mark Zuckerberg, who wrote that the company's mantra has long been to focus on delivering features first and improving later.

WIth over 800 million members worldwide, it's pretty amazing how Facebook has grown and changed our lives over the years.

It now seems almost impossible to imagine life without witty status updates, friend requests, relationship statuses or photo tags.

Users became even more attached to the site after the company rolled out interactive features like chat, the timeline and the subscription button.

Some might even say the site resembles a digital resume, especially since now you can turn your timeline into business cards.

Even more notable is how Facebook expanded internationally. Available in over 70 languages, 80% of the company's monthly users are from outside the U.S. and Canada.

Happy Birthday, Facebook!