16 Years of Facebook: A Marketing Evolution Story

Facebook has grown by leaps and bounds in the last fifteen years. As Facebook celebrates its 16th anniversary, let’s look at the key events that define Facebook’s groundbreaking journey that started in 2004.

On February 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his four fellow Harvard University classmates, launched a social networking platform called TheFacebook to connect Harvard students digitally. In June 2004, the venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, became the first outside investor by making an angel investment of $500,000. By the end of 2004, Facebook had already reached the one million user milestone. 

Facebook celebrates its sixteenth anniversary this year, and despite all the allegations and controversies surrounding data privacy, it continues to remain a social media juggernaut with over 2 billion users. So, on the 16^th anniversary of Facebook, let’s briefly look at the defining milestones.

Pre-Facebook Days

Before Facebook was born, Mark Zuckerberg created FaceMash, a knock-off of Hot or NotOpens a new window , in 2003. Zuckerberg hacked into the university database, stole the photos, uploaded them on the website, and took it live. 

The Harvard administration shut down the website after a few days and charged Mark Zuckerberg with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy. The charges were later dropped.

The Early Days

By March, TheFacebook had gone viral at Ivy League universities such as Yale and Columbia.

In August 2005, Facebook dropped ‘the’ from its domain name. The company bought the domain name facebook.com from AboutFace CorporationOpens a new window for $200,000. By the end of 2005, Facebook expanded to UK universities, introduced the photo upload feature, and managed to hit six million users.

Two important product features launched in 2006 – first, Facebook became open for anyone above the age of 13 with an email address, second and perhaps the most important feature, the News Feed. Facebook Notes soon followed and became a massive hit among aspiring writers and poets.

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Facebook Gets Down to Business

Facebook introduced many features in the following years and expanded on the functionalities that enabled it to become a cash flow positive organization by 2009. They also filed for an IPO in 2012. They then went on to release a mobile website, an iPhone application, the Like button, and made massive upgradations in the site and interface design.

In this section, let’s look at seven features that helped Facebook surpass contemporary social networks and garner a massive user base.

1. Facebook Platform for Developers
 

On May 24, 2007, Mark Zuckerberg announced the Facebook Platform at the Facebook F8 conference. The platform allowed third-party programmers/developers to build social apps using the social graph and integrate them into Facebook. This move was considered antithetical to MySpaceOpens a new window because it had the reputation of shutting down or acquiring third-party applications.

Facebook was growing at 3% per weekOpens a new window , i.e., 100,000 new users per day, and half of the registered users constituted the daily active userbase. Opening up the Graph API to developers was a win-win because it helped Facebook integrate new functionalities and helped programmers build their businesses.

2. Social Ads
 

In November 2007, Facebook launched Social Ads that allowed marketers to serve targeted ads to their potential customers. During the keynote of the Facebook Social Advertising eventOpens a new window , Mark Zuckerberg said, “Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online. For the last hundred years, media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.”

Facebook Beacon was the core of Facebook’s advertising ecosystem that sent data from partner websites to Facebook to serve better ads. Beacon was discontinued in 2009.

To facilitate Social Ads, the social media platform also launched Facebook PagesOpens a new window that gave organizations, celebrities, and other entities another avenue to connect with their audience. Facebook Pages have gone on to become the core of any brand’s presence on the platform and on social media.

3. Facebook Messenger
 

Facebook acquired a mobile messaging app called BelugaOpens a new window in March 2011. With the product, the company also acquired its talent. Later that year, Facebook launched a standalone messaging app called Facebook MessengerOpens a new window for Android and iPhone, using Beluga as its base. The app allowed users to send messages, photos, and share locations in a one-to-one and group chat.

In recent years, the growth of messenger apps and conversational AI (e.g., chatbots) has proved to be a solid decision for Facebook since Messenger constitutes to be one of the leading messaging apps used in digital marketing and advertising today.

4. Facebook Graph Search
 

A few years before search engines cracked the code for delivering relevant results for semantic queries, Facebook released a feature called Graph SearchOpens a new window . The feature was native to Facebook and focused on only four types of queries, viz., people (friends from San Francisco), places (Continental restaurants in San Francisco), photos (photos taken in San Francisco), and interests (bands liked by ).

The feature was originally released to limited users but ultimately discontinued in June 2019, as it encountered challenges and speculated privacy concerns.

5. Facebook Business Manager
 

In April 2014, Facebook officially launched Facebook Business Manager, a tool that marketers and agencies could use to manage multiple pages and paid ad campaigns through a single interface.

TechCrunchOpens a new window , however, suggested that this tool might hamper the Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) program (now known as Facebook Marketing Partners) as it allowed PMDs to build superior tools for large marketers. A Facebook representative cleared the airOpens a new window by commenting that PMDs will still have access to the API so that they can build apps on top of it.

6. Facebook Marketplace
 

When users started using groups to buy and sell furniture, cars, clothes, etc., Facebook saw the potential and launched Facebook MarketplaceOpens a new window in October 2016 across the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Facebook later rolled-out this feature in other geographies as its popularity soared.

According to CNETOpens a new window , Facebook Marketplace is used in 70 countries by 800 million people around the world each month, and one in three people in the US use Marketplace.

7. Acquisitions
 

Facebook has kept acquiring visionary products over the years to strengthen itself as a platform. Here are the top three of Facebook’s acquisitions:

1. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in April 2012
2. In February 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $16 billion
3. The following month, Facebook acquired  Oculus VR, Inc., a virtual reality company for $2 billion.
    

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Controversies Over the Years

In spite of the growth Facebook achieved, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows throughout its journey. The platform has been under scrutiny several times due to fake accounts, ad fraud, incorrect metric reporting, fake news, data breaches, and illegal practices. Let’s look at the three major controversies that brought notoriety to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

1. ConnectU Versus Facebook
 

ConnectU (known initially as HarvardConnection) was a social networking platform founded in December 2002 by three Harvard students – Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra. The platform was launched in May 2004.

ConnectU lodged a lawsuit against FacebookOpens a new window in 2004, saying that Mark Zuckerberg breached an oral contract to build ConnectU, and instead stole the idea and the code to develop Facebook. The lawsuit was settled in June 2008.

2. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal
 

In 2018, it was reported that Cambridge Analytica had harvested profiles of fifty million Facebook usersOpens a new window without their knowledge to target personalized political ads. In light of this scandal, Mark Zuckerberg eventually testified before Congress. He was questioned to understand Facebook’s data collection practices, user privacy, and business model.

Mark Zuckerberg Testifies Before the U.S. Congress

3. Refusal to Ban Political Ads
 

Facebook has been a potent platform for political parties to run ad campaigns. Many times, these ads propagate false claims and lies to change audience perception. Due to this, Twitter has already put an end to political adsOpens a new window .

But despite the potential of spreading fake news, claims, and propaganda, which can further impact the election results, Facebook has sternly refused to ban political ads several timesOpens a new window .

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The Future of Facebook

Facebook started as a social networking platform for Harvard from Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room and has gone to become a global phenomenon. Today, Facebook has over 2.5 billion users. Due to continual controversies, Facebook’s stock value has seen some crests and troughs.

The powerful features provided through pages, groups, and advertising, make Facebook an indispensable part of a marketer’s stack. As Facebook turns 16 this month, we are curious to see how the platform evolves in the coming years.

How much do you rely on Facebook for your marketing efforts? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , FacebookOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window .