It wasn’t the 1st social network, but it is definitely the biggest and it has provided a lot of business for IT professionals over the years through increased network traffic, security issues and various other side effects to people sharing pictures of grumpy cats so we’d like to take a moment to wish Facebook a happy 10th Birthday.
The facebook launched in February 2004 – the evolution of a dubious online experiment called Facesmash, in which Harvard University students would be presented with images of two of their classmates and would vote on which one was more attractive. From such genesis, Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates and friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin started a social network which has grown to claim 1.23 billion active, monthly users.
Along the way it added hundreds of apps, including photos, chat and games, went mobile (Facebook now gets more revenue from mobile ads that from desktop ads), launched one of the biggest IPOs in history ($104 billion) and was the subject of an Academy Award-winning film. It has also delivered a massive revenue opportunity to IT service providers who help their SMB clients manage the increased IT demands Facebook has generated.
And so, many happy returns Facebook. Keep up the good work.
For more details on the evolution of Facebook check out the detailed slideshow on CIO.com.
