Facebook turns 20: the story of the social network that changed the world

Founded 20 years ago as a simple virtual space to share with friends, Facebook It has become a giant hardened by a thousand battles that, despite thinking that it is only for parents and “boomers”, continues to grow and grow.

“I will never forget the day I ran to my high school Mac lab and signed up for Facebook,” Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg told AFP.

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“You felt at the same time that you were part of this small and exclusive community where your parents, grandparents and teachers were not (…), but also part of something much bigger,” he recalls.

Launched as thefacebook.com by Mark Zuckerberg and three friends on February 4, 2004, the portal was only available to Harvard College students. It opened to the general public in 2006.

Facebook became a place to connect with almost everyone, everywhere. In 2023, it is reported to be used by more than 3 billion people monthly, a growth of 3% compared to the previous year.

“When it launched, Facebook was revolutionary,” Enberg said. “It’s hard to overstate the impact it’s had on shaping everything from pop culture to how we behave on the Internet.”

As more users interacted on the social network, which displayed photos, comments and other publications, The more it could show ads to make money from the vast amount of information that people shared.

He is recognized for having helped open a door for content to “go viral” and for having promoted the trend of purely digital media.

Ruby Hammer shows her Facebook profile near her home in Felton, California, on January 26, 2024. Born in a Harvard dorm twenty years ago, Facebook quickly gained millions of members and remains an attractive platform for users and advertisers today nowadays despite privacy. scandals and the outdated image of her. (Photo by Nic Coury / AFP) (NIC COURY/)

Advertising giant

Facebook gained a reputation for buying or copying potential rivals. Now, it powers a “family” of platforms that include instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg, still at the head of the company, stuck to the strategy of investing big in gaining users before integrating methods to generate profitssuch as targeted advertising.

“It remains irresistible to advertisers, thanks to its reach and performance,” Enberg noted.

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Together with Google, Facebook became an Internet advertising giant, with profits reaching $23 billion in 2022, a year considered bad for the Silicon Valley-based company.

The platform is “part of the digital landscape” particularly for “millennials” born in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the analyst.

The business model of using personal information to offer more content that captures users’ attention, as well as targeted advertising, It has earned Facebook lawsuits and fines.

from toaccusations that Russia used the platform to try influence in the result of the elections presidential of United States of 2016until allegations in 2021 that managers put profits before the well-being of users, have put it in the eye of the hurricane.

Despite this, Facebook continues to grow, which has allowed it to invest in innovations such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

With the argument that Zuckerberg dreamed of a virtual and immersive world that he would call “metaverse”Facebook changed the name of its parent company to “Meta” at the end of 2021.

A photograph taken during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on January 18, 2024, shows the logo of Meta, the American company that owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. On February 1, 2024, Meta reported a profit of $14 billion in the final three months of last year, beating analyst forecasts. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (FABRICE COFFRINI/)

“No alternative”

“It is possible that we are less involved, but we have not left because there really is no alternative,” explained Carolina Milanesi, creative strategies analyst.

Facebook was in vogue with the addition of “groups”, which allows communities to be formed based on common interests, and gained popularity with the functions of Marketplace to buy or sell products.

Although Enberg considers the purchase of Instagram in 2012 one of his best decisions, as part of the shift towards smartphones.

Nina Vukicevic, manager at Common Roots Farm, takes pictures of sheep for the farm�s Facebook page in Santa Cruz, California, on January. 26, 2024. Born in a Harvard dorm twenty years ago, Facebook rapidly conquered millions of members, and remains an attractive platform to users and advertisers today despite the privacy scandals and its outdated image. (Photo by Nic Coury / AFP) (NIC COURY/)

The move eliminated a rival, provided a new platform for advertising and It attracted young users who were losing interest in Facebook.

Currently, more than half of Facebook users are between 18 and 34 years old.according to research by DataReportal.

How involved users are, however, remains difficult to measure.

“I go to Facebook very little, but what I post on Instagram automatically also appears on Facebook,” says Milanesi.

“So I am certainly counted as ‘active’ (…) The numbers may not reflect reality.”

Source: Elcomercio