Facebook is a social network service and website, which was launched in February 2004 by former-Harvard student of psychology, Mark Zuckerberg, and his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Mark Zuckerberg (while he was studying at Harvard) ran Facebook as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin.

Did you know that:

• Facebook, with its 900+ million users would be the 3rd largest country in the world?
• every 7.76th person in the world has a Facebook account?
• Facebook is the most visited page on the internet?
• Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker is the most popular game on Facebook?
• Facebook’s value is over $100 billion?
• the most growing country on Facebook is Brazil?
• 80% of friend requests are accepted?
• Facebook Mobile has over 500 million Monthly Active Users, North America having 32% share with 161.7 million?
• the most losing country on Facebook is Indonesia?
• Asia has 17 times more users than Australia and Oceania?
• Bangkok is the city with the most Facebook users?
• Los Angeles International Airport is the most checked-in place on Facebook?
• Facebook wanted to call the “Like” button the “Awesome” button?
• Google was worth a quarter of Facebook's va­luation when it first went public?
• Facebook used to be called “Thefacebook”?
• Moskovitz had a net worth of $3.5 billion and overthrown Zuckerberg from the title of world's youngest billionaire, being just eight days younger?

Timeline of Facebook History

2012

August

• There are more than 900 million Facebook users from the majority of countries throughout the world (for actual Facebook stats, please visit this page).

May

• Facebook went public, opening on the NASDAQ with shares trading at $42.05 (a valuation of Facebook went around $115 billion). Unfortunately, the Facebook (NASDAQ) stock price quickly dropped to under $29.

2011

January

• Following a $1.5 billion round of funding in January 2011, the company was valued at $50 billion.

2010

October

• October 1st, 2010, the movie The Social Network was released, covering a story about the founders of Facebook (directed by David Fincher and starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake). The movie has received extremely positive reviews from film critics.

May

• Facebook officially became the world's fastest growing company when it surpassed 500 million active users in 2010. However, before Facebook became a well-known and global company producing millions in revenue, a lot of larger media companies attempted to acquire Facebook. There have been a few attempts by major companies to buy Facebook, some claiming that they would offer as much as** $2 billion dollars** for the world’s second most popular website, though Zuckerberg has always refused to sell.

2009

December

• Facebook has almost 350 million users.

July

• Russian company Digital Sky Technologies has launched a tender offer of $100 million to the Facebook’s em­ployees.

May

• Russian company Digital Sky Technologies invested $200 million into prioritized shares in an estimated value of $10 billion. Later, the company continued to buy Facebook’s shares and is one of the largest institutional shareholders to date.

February

• Facebook has introduced a new function called ‘Like’ and has reached 175 million users.

January

• Facebook has integrated into CNN Live and has reached 150 million users.

2008

August

• The number of Facebook users reached 100 million and it was evident that this growth would continue for the years to come.

April

• Facebook has introduced the ‘Chat’ function.

January

• Facebook sponsored a presidential debate along with ABC News station.

2007

December

• Facebook reached 12 million users.

November

• Facebook has introduced Facebook Ads.

October

• Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. This valued Facebook at over $15 billion and made it the 5th most valuable US Internet company, however Facebook only had $150 million in annual revenue.

September

• Microsoft approached Facebook, offering an estimated $300–500 million in return for a 5% stake in the company.
• Other companies, including Google, expressed interest in buying a portion of Facebook.

2006

November

• New function of ‘Sharing’ has been introduced and run on 20 partner websites.

September

• Facebook was opened to the public.

August

• Microsoft and Facebook made a strategic partnership in integrating advertising banners, making Microsoft a primary partner for advertising

June

• Serious negotiations between Facebook and Yahoo discussed a possible acquisition of Facebook. Yahoo attempted to acquire the company for $1 billion dollars and reports indicated that Zuckerberg made a verbal agreement to sell. A few days later, Yahoo’s stock price took a dive and the offer was lowered to $800. With this new price, Zuckerberg rejected the deal. Yahoo later offered $1 billion again, this time Zuckerberg immediately turned down the offer and he suggested that Facebook is valued at $8 billion.

April

• Facebook received $25 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital, as well as previous investors Accel Partners and Peter Thiel. Before receiving this funding they were valued at about $525 million.

March

• Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from Viacom.

2005

December

• Facebook had acquired 6 million users and had reached Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

October

• The function of photo galleries has been introduced and Facebook started to add networks of international schools.

September

• Facebook expanded its network to include high school students if they received an invitation from an existing user. This membership also expanded to include employees from several companies like Microsoft and Apple.

August

• The URL of social network Thefacebook (www.thefacebook.com) was redirected to the official Facebook homepage and the name was finally changed to “Facebook”.

2004

September

• The first non-Americans to use this social networking site were students of 21 universities on the United Kingdom. Shortly after, Thefacebook spread to 30 campuses throughout Mexico, Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands.
• New functions – Wall and Groups – have been introduced.

June

• Thefacebook became incorporated and began expanding to the rest of the world.
• Facebook’s he­adquarters has been moved to Palo Alto, California.
• Friendster attempted to acquire Facebook for $10 million, unsuccessfully.
• Facebook received $12.7 million in funding from Accel Partners with a valuation around $100 million.

February

• The new version of the social site, Thefacebook, was introduced by three sophomores at Harvard – Mark Zuckerberg, and his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The name of the social network originated from university leaflets named “Facebooks.” These brochures are handed out to first-year university students to encourage students to become acquainted with one another. This new social networking system for university students enabled them to keep in contact with friends and classmates at their institution as well as others that were registered. As the first social networking site, Thefacebook helped them to find old high school friends, look up profiles of classmates, get help with homework. Also, students were able to advertise of all sorts, build a portfolio of new friends, spread the word about concerts, book sales, and student organizations, etc.

2003

• The membership for this social site was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. Within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service. Soon after – Thefacebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale University. The network was promptly extended to other Boston universities, the Ivy League (eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States) and eventually all US and Canadian universities.

October

• After the creation of Facemash, Zuckerberg forwarded the link to a few friends for advice. However, the link then was sent to several campus group list-serves, and traffic immediately skyrocketed. In the course of one day, the number of visitors quadrupled and within 4 hours of the site going online nearly 450 visitors viewed more than 22,000 photos. The popularity of Facemash caused serious issues for Harvard’s network and Zuckerberg faced expulsion for violating copyrights, individual privacy and breaching the administration’s se­curity.
• The website Facemash, which was a predecessor of Facebook, was created by Zuckerberg during his second year of college. Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied Fraternity and Sorority houses’ private dormitory ID images. He used these images for Facemash to prompt users to choose the "hotter” photo between two different students. Up to this point, Harvard did not have a public online directory with photos and basic information about students. However, individual student houses had been issuing their own “paper Facebooks“. For this reason, Facemash was an instant success.

Facebook – Company profile

Board of Directors:

• Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Facebook
• Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer
• David Ebersman, Chief Financial Officer
• Marc Andreessen, Co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
• Erskine B. Bowles, President Emeritus, the University of North Carolina
• James W. Breyer, Partner, Accel Partners
• Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
• Reed Hastings, Chairman and CEO, Netflix
• Peter A. Thiel, Partner, Founders Fund

Do you know, how to create an Official Facebook Page?

P.S.: Don´t forget to save the date for the upcoming Engage 2012 event taking place October 23rd in New York City! Find out more here.