Fifteen years ago this week, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg created TheFacebook.com, a social network for college students that looked a lot like Friendster or Myspace. The company moved from his dorm room to Silicon Valley a few months later, and began expanding to other universities. In the beginning, Zuckerberg didn’t take his role too seriously. His first business card notoriously read: “I’m CEO … bitch.”
A decade and a half later, Facebook apps are used by roughly a third of the world’s people each month. The company has acquired or crushed most of its main competitors, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. It’s now equivalent to approximately seven Twitters in terms of monthly active users. Facebook is where nearly half of Americans get their news, the place where millions of nonprofits collect donations, a venue for state-sponsored propaganda, and where people announce their engagements, babies, or even divorces. It is perhaps the largest repository of personal information about humankind to ever exist. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, still makes time to allegedly stage photos so he looks taller than he actually is and smoke his own meats.
Facebook isn’t just a social network and messaging platform powered by advertisements; it’s also a marketplace for secondhand goods, a virtual reality headset manufacturer, a VPN company, and a satellite developer. The company has lured some of the most talented artificial intelligence researchers and developed one of the most powerful facial recognition algorithms. It has swallowed more than 70 companies, most which made technical software, according to the investment site Crunchbase. Facebook is also generating significant wealth for its 35,000-odd employees: The median salary in 2017 was more than $240,000, though that figure excludes the company’s legions of contract workers.
As Facebook turns 15, it’s confronting some of its biggest challenges yet, including a looming Federal Trade Commission investigation and potential federal regulation from Congress. To celebrate the milestone, we’re taking a comprehensive look at what Facebook has become. Here’s everything the social network has touched. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook the Platform
TheFacebook.com didn’t become Facebook.com until Zuckerberg purchased the domain for $200,000 in 2005. The company wouldn’t acquire its shorter URL, fb.com, until 2011, when it bought it from, of all places, the American Farm Bureau Federation. The deal cost the social network $8.5 million. The year before that acquisition, Facebook snagged the patents for Friendster, one of its early competitors, for an estimated $40 million.
Originally, Facebook merely displayed individual profiles. But in September 2006, the company introduced the News Feed, prompting widespread user backlash over privacy concerns. (Zuckerberg told users to “Calm down. Breathe” the day after the feature was announced. Twenty-four hours later, he admitted that he had “really messed this one up,” but the News Feed remained.) The same year, Facebook introduced the Notes feature, and like the rest of the internet, began blogging.
In early 2007, the company launched Facebook Mobile, allowing users to access the site on their phones; it’s now the primary way people use the social network. In 2008, the company released an iOS app for the still-novel iPhone, which included location-sharing features for friend discovery and, eventually, targeted ads. In 2011, the company launched Facebook for SIM, which let mobile users without a data plan access Facebook by paying for a subscription (the SIM cards are no longer available).
Also in 2007, Facebook created Marketplace, a Craigslist-esque classified ads portal, which evolved several times before becoming the in-app feature available today. Around this time, the company released Facebook Platform, a set of tools and products for developers to make and adapt applications for the Facebook ecosystem. (By 2009, Zynga had become the most prominent developer on Facebook, with millions of people playing its hit game FarmVille.) In May 2008, Facebook launched Facebook Connect, which it described as “the next iteration of Facebook Platform.” The feature allowed users to sign in to other apps and sites using their Facebook credentials. Facebook boasted it would allow developers to add “social context” to their sites by showing users which friends had already made accounts.
In 2009, Facebook introduced perhaps its most iconic feature: the Like button. Facebook expanded on the Like in 2016, when it introduced Reactions, including “wow,” “haha,” “sad,” “angry,” and “love.” (Since nearly the beginning users have also had the ability to “Poke” each other.)
In 2014, Facebook introduced Facebook Safety Check, a feature activated during disasters and mass attacks for people to let their family and friends know they’re safe. In 2016, the company released a separate Events app and introduced Facebook at Work (later renamed Workplace), a business communication platform similar to Slack.
Media and Gaming
Facebook Photos debuted in 2005. There were no limits to how many images users could upload, and it quickly became one of the site’s most popular features. Facebook Video arrived two years later, with the catchphrase “Videos of your friends are interesting.” In 2011, Facebook partnered with Skype to develop a Video Calling feature.
Facebook Live launched in 2015, initially only for verified users. Facebook later paid news organizations to develop live content, including a famous BuzzFeed video of an exploding watermelon. Facebook Live came under scrutiny after it was used to livestream suicides and homicides. Around the same time, Facebook enabled capability for 360 Degree Videos. And by 2016, users were able to upload and view 360 Degree Photos.
Facebook’s pivot to video continued in 2017 with the launch of Facebook Watch, a video-on-demand service showcasing original content developed by partners, ranging from Refinery29 and Univision to Fox News. Facebook Watch Party, a shared viewing experience for groups, debuted in early 2018. Later that year, Facebook announced that several news programs, developed in partnership with outlets like CNN and BuzzFeed, would be available on Facebook Watch.
Also in 2018, Facebook launched Lip Sync Live, a Facebook Live karaoke feature reminiscent of TikTok, a similar app beloved by teens. The company also introduced a number of other interactive video add-ons, such as Polling and Gamification.
When it wasn’t combating privacy scandals, Facebook spent much of last year attempting to lure gamers to its platform. The company obtained the exclusive streaming rights for multiple esports leagues from the federation ESL. It then rolled out its Gaming Creator Level Up Program, which aims to attract popular livestreamers to Facebook Live—and away from Amazon-owned Twitch—by helping them expand their followings, make money, and engage with fans.
Facebook also rolled out its own Twitch-style dedicated live-streaming site, Fb.gg, and began offering some gaming influencers money for using the platform. Some of Facebook’s gaming partners can also participate in a Patreon-style monthly subscription program for fans, now being tested by the company. Facebook also launched its own virtual currency, Facebook Stars, worth one cent each, for users to send to their favorite gamers as tips. (The company takes a cut of every Star purchased by users.)
While it’s too soon to determine the fate of its various livestreaming ventures, Facebook has recently faced accusations that in the past it encouraged children to spend large sums of money playing games without their parents’ permission.
In 2015, Facebook launched Instant Articles, a feature that allows users to read news articles from select websites without leaving the social network. After the 2016 US presidential election, when it was criticized for spreading misinformation, Facebook began partnering with outside fact-checking organizations to combat misinformation. Around the same time, it announced the Facebook Journalism Project to foster partnerships with the media industry.
Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and More
Facebook’s original messaging feature was Inbox, a Facebookified email client where messages were linked in threads (real-time messaging was impossible). As the site matured, private messaging became increasingly important. In 2008, the company launched Facebook Chat, an instant messaging service similar to AIM and Gchat. In February 2011, Facebook acquired group messaging service Beluga, which it used to develop its standalone chat app Messenger, released later that year. In 2015, the company added a person-to-person payment service to Messenger. Facebook Messenger Lite, a pared-down version of the app designed for emerging markets, was released in 2016. A year later, Facebook launched Messenger Kids, which targeted users as young as six.
In 2012, Facebook paid $1 billion to acquire photo-sharing app Instagram, and has since rolled out additional features, including Instagram Direct messaging, disappearing Instagram Stories, and IGTV, a video streaming service. Two years after buying Instagram, Facebook shelled out $19 billion to purchase private messaging service WhatsApp, where it also introduced Stories. The Snapchat-esque feature made its way to Facebook proper in 2018. It was recently reported that Facebook plans to merge the underlying messaging infrastructure that powers WhatsApp, Instagram, Direct, and Facebook Messenger.
Over the years, Facebook has acquired or built several apps and tools that bear a striking resemblance to its competitors. There’s the TikTok clone Lasso, for instance, as well as the cringe-worthy-named meme app LOL. In 2018, the company rolled out Collection, a sharing tab similar to Pinterest. And it began testing Dating, a feature within its main app that works similarly to other dating services like Tinder and Bumble. (It’s not yet available in most regions.)
Advertising
When Zuckerberg announced the launch of Facebook Ads and brand Pages in 2007, he declared that “the next hundred years will be different for advertising, and it starts today.” He wasn’t wrong. Facebook makes most of its revenue---$55 billion last year---by charging marketers to target people based on the information it compiles about them. Facebook IQ, the company’s digital research arm, provides “powerful, actionable insights on consumer behavior, marketing and measurement.” The Intercept reported that Facebook wants to use AI to predict how consumers will behave in the future.
Also in 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Social Ads and Facebook Beacon. The latter sent information about users’ activity on other websites to Facebook for the purpose of ad targeting. Facebook Beacon quickly became the subject of a privacy lawsuit and was retired in 2009.
Facebook uses myriad other tools to track user activity on and off the web, including Facebook Pixel, a tracker embedded on millions of websites. In 2015, Facebook also handed out free Facebook Bluetooth Beacons to businesses. The physical devices could monitor when a specific Facebook user visited their restaurant or store. Though the page for businesses to request beacons has since disappeared, Facebook claims to offer advertisers a way to calculate store visits using “customers' Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signatures” and “satellite imagery and mapping data.”
In 2012, Facebook began displaying advertisements as Featured Posts in the News Feed. Shortly after, the company launched the now-defunct Facebook Exchange, a marketplace for advertisers to bid on real-time ad placements. In 2018, the social network rolled out its own influencer marketplace called the Brand Collabs Manager.
Around the same time, Facebook launched a political ad tool, which allows users to view ads from political advertisers. The change came after Facebook discovered Russian propagandists had purchased more than 3,500 ads targeting Americans as part of a disinformation campaign around the 2016 US election.
Ads created through Facebook’s Ad Manager app or platform can be shown to users on Facebook or Instagram as stories, in-line posts, or other ways. The company also has free marketing and business courses available online as part of its Facebook Blueprint e-learning system. Wannabe marketers can even achieve Facebook Blueprint Certification if they want to truly “establish [their] Facebook marketing expertise.”
Connectivity
In 2013, Zuckerberg announced Facebook wanted to help connect the 5 billion people who then lacked access to the internet, mostly in the developing world. He estimated the project would take five to 10 years. Facebook soon created Internet.org, a set of initiatives that included the Connectivity Lab, where researchers work to reach the not-yet-connected via drones, satellites, and lasers. Through the lab, Facebook built Aquila, an enormous solar-powered drone designed to beam an internet connection back to Earth. It was permanently grounded in 2018, two years after its first public test flights. The Connectivity Lab also experimented with satellites, including one designed to provide internet access to sub-Saharan Africa, which blew up on a SpaceX rocket in 2016. Last year, WIRED reported that Facebook was planning to launch a new satellite called Athena in 2019.
The Connectivity Lab also worked to create maps to help understand where networks needed to be improved. And it developed OpenCellular, a device that can be strapped to a tree or street lamp and function like a miniature cellular station, as well as Terragraph and ARIES, wireless antennas for improving internet access in both rural and urban areas. In 2015, the company created Express Wi-Fi, a program where local businesses host routers that people nearby can use as internet hotspots.
Internet.org’s most controversial access project is Free Basics, a program launched in 2013 that offers people in more than 60 countries free access to a limited suite of websites and apps, including, of course, Facebook. In 2016, Free Basics was banned in India as part of a ruling in support of net neutrality. Also that year, Facebook launched the Telecom Infra Project, a partnership with more than two dozen companies aimed at improving the underlying architecture that powers the internet. The initiative echoed the Open Compute Project, an open source initiative that Facebook launched in 2011 to remodel the hardware used inside computer data centers. To top it off, Facebook also owns a number of undersea internet cables.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
In 2014, Facebook paid $3 billion to buy Oculus, a virtual reality company that now makes three types of headsets, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and Gear VR. (Coming soon is Oculus Quest, an all-in-one gaming system that doesn’t need to be connected to a computer.) Together with Samsung, Oculus released Samsung Gear VR in 2015. Oculus Studios publishes and funds VR games and experiences, while Oculus Story Studio focused on VR storytelling content before it shuttered in 2017.
Also in 2017, Facebook unveiled two VR cameras designed to capture spherical video and released the blueprints for them to the world via the coding site Github. In addition, Facebook introduced the Camera Effects platform, a set of tools for developers to create augmented-reality apps. Around the same time, Facebook announced Facebook Spaces, a bizarre, VR-version of the social network.
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Artificial Intelligence
Facebook has invested considerable resources in its Applied Machine Learning Group, whose engineers help to automate many parts of its sprawling platform. The company’s AI Research group has attracted top scholars in the field and regularly publishes world-renowned research.
AI now helps detect toxic comments on Instagram, determines which posts appear in your Facebook News Feed, and makes sponsored posts more “relevant.” The tech is also used to identify potentially offending posts for the social network’s thousands of content moderators. For example, the company uses an algorithm called Rosetta to analyze text in photos and videos, which can alert a moderator if it thinks a meme violates Facebook’s hate speech policies. Facebook also uses AI for more controversial purposes, like to determine whether someone is suicidal.
In December 2010, Facebook began using facial recognition technology to suggest who to tag in a photo. In 2014, the company said its DeepFace algorithm had become as accurate as humans at identifying faces. In 2017, it expanded its facial recognition feature to alert users when an image of them is uploaded—even if they’re not tagged in it. Around the same time, Facebook said it was using photo-matching technology to halt the spread of revenge porn.
Facebook has also used AI to build automated chatbots. In 2017, the company caused a panic when some news organizations incorrectly reported that its bots had begun talking to one another in their own language. In fact, Facebook’s researchers had set out to build bots that could negotiate with people, but instead the bots started talking gibberish.
In 2018, Facebook’s AI researchers announced they had partnered with New York University to develop more efficient diagnostic technology that could significantly speed up MRIs. Facebook has also even built AI that builds other AI.
Consumer Hardware
In 2013, Facebook released the so-called Facebook Phone, also known as the HTC First. The Android device came preloaded with Facebook Home, a software addition for the home and lock screens that nudged the user to post on Facebook more often. Despite much fanfare, the phone didn’t take off; at one point, AT&T offered the device for just 99 cents.
In October, Facebook tried again to break into hardware with Facebook Portal, a smart home device with a camera, which arrived as the company faced a number of privacy scandals. Facebook’s team of hardware designers reportedly also is working on a pair of AR glasses, that could come sometime in the next few years.
Other Facebook Projects
In 2013, Facebook purchased Onavo, an Israeli VPN maker, which it reportedly used to gather data on popular emerging apps in order to copy or buy them. It also used tech from Onavo to build Facebook Research, an app where users are paid around $20 a month to share their data with the social network. Onavo and Facebook Research were recently removed from iPhones for violating Apple’s privacy rules (they’re both still available on Android). Onavo also launched Bolt, an app that could lock other applications using a pin code or fingerprint. Facebook later deleted it after the app raised privacy concerns.
Also in 2013, Facebook waded into the nonprofit sector with Donate, a feature for contributing to nonprofits. It later added a suite of tools for charities; more than 1 million organizations now accept donations through the social network. Facebook celebrates its nonprofit work each year at the annual Facebook Social Good Forum. That’s where the company has introduced several features designed to help facilitate blood donations. In 2018, the company announced Blood Donations on Facebook, to make it easier to find places to donate in certain countries.
In 2017, Facebook’s experimental unit Building 8 announced plans to create a device to read your thoughts. The same group is also working on an armband to allow people to hear through their skin. Building 8 researchers were reportedly planning to negotiate data-sharing agreements with hospitals, until the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light. The project was subsequently scrapped.
In addition, Facebook runs a Bug Bounty Program, a startup incubator in Paris called Station F, and a career development site dubbed Learn with Facebook. The company also facilitates digital skills training for small businesses through its Community Boost program, and bought the popular publisher analytics tool CrowdTangle in 2016. There’s also Jarvis, Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual assistant who can help the CEO eat plain white toast whenever his heart desires.
Facebook is also reportedly developing a cryptocurrency for WhatsApp purchases. Facebook has made other advances in the crypto world. Last May, former head of Messenger David Marcus shifted to head a new project focused on leveraging blockchain technology for Facebook. Tuesday, the company acquired the team behind Chainspace, a blockchain startup.
The Graveyard
Many Facebook initiatives died, not unusual for a company trying to innovate in so many areas. Some of these projects were thinly veiled knockoffs of competitors, while others were quietly phased out amid privacy or other concerns.
In 2009, Facebook briefly experimented with a user governance structure, where people could vote on what policies the site adopted. But only a tiny fraction of the platform’s then-200 million users participated, and the program was soon abandoned.
Facebook acquired social gifting app Karma in 2012, but soon after launched its own ecommerce platform, Facebook Gifts. After that failed to take off, Facebook pivoted to the Facebook Card, a mega-gift card that worked at a variety of physical retailers. A version of the Facebook Card technically still exists, but only for Facebook-related purchases.
In 2014, Facebook launched Trending Topics to display a selection of viral news stories. It was originally edited by human curators, who were accused of bias; the curators were replaced by an algorithm, which led to the appearance of hoaxes and fake news stories. Facebook tried reforming the feature, but eventually shut it down last year.
Over the years, Facebook has launched several Snapchat competitors, none of which have achieved mainstream success. There was Poke in 2012, Slingshot and Bolt in 2014 and Lifestage, which was killed in 2017. Also in 2014, the company launched Facebook Paper, a news-reading app that was basically Facebook’s version of Pocket; it was shuttered in 2016. Facebook also killed its standalone Groups app soon after.
When the anonymous gossip app Sarahah became a viral sensation among teens in 2017, Facebook bought its own gossip app, tbh, which it almost immediately shut down. At the same time, it shuttered the contact app Hello and the fitness app Moves, which it had acquired in 2014.
Other abandoned Facebook endeavors include: a virtual assistant in Messenger called M; anonymous forum app Rooms; the Notify app to send notifications; an app called I’m Voting created in partnership with CNN; a Google Photos competitor called Moments; the Facebook Lite app; the Facebook Credits virtual currency; a Vine competitor called Riff; and, of course, the media darling known as Facebook’s War Room, built to help monitor misinformation during the 2018 US midterm elections and Brazilian presidential election.
Do you know a part of Facebook we didn't list? Let the authors know at: paris_martineau@wired.com and louise_matsakis@wired.com.
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