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This is what Facebook looked like when Mark Zuckerberg and a handful of friends started it out of their student accommodation 20 years ago.
Since then, the most popular social network in the world has changed its appearance several times, but its goal has remained the same: to connect people over the Internet and to make tons of money from advertising.
And now that the platform is turning 20, here are four ways Facebook changed the world.
- Every fourth person in the world has a Facebook profile
- Target: Flag political ads edited with artificial intelligence
- Facebook does not have a negative effect on mental health, research has shown
1. Facebook has changed the game in the social networking world
There were other social networks, like MySpace, before Facebook - but Mark Zuckerberg's site was an instant hit when it launched in 2004, proving just how quickly an online site of its kind can take off.
In less than a year, it had a million users, and within four years it had overtaken MySpace, fueled by innovations such as the ability to "tag" people in photos.
Carrying a digital camera on a night out and then "tagging" your friends in dozens of photos was a hallmark of teenage life in the late 2000s.
The constant improvement of the "main page" also attracted many users.
By 2012, Facebook surpassed one billion monthly users and, despite a brief blip at the end of 2021 - when the number of daily active users dropped to 1,92 billion for the first time - the platform has continued to grow.
By expanding to less connected countries and offering free internet, the company has maintained and increased the number of users of this social network.
At the end of 2023, Facebook announced that it had more than two billion daily users.
Admittedly, he is less popular than he was among the youth.
However, it is still the most popular social network in the world and has ushered in a new era of social activities on the Internet.
Facebook and its rivals are seen by some as empowering tools of connection, while others see them as contagious agents of destruction.
2. Facebook has made our personal data valuable… and less personal
Facebook has proven that collecting our reactions to posts is extremely lucrative.
These days Meta, (Facebook's new name), is an advertising giant that, along with the likes of Google, has a huge share of global ad money.
Meta reported nearly $34 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2023, mostly by offering highly targeted advertising services to advertisers.
The company reported earnings of $11,5 billion.
But Facebook has also shown that data collection can go wrong.
The target has been fined several times for misuse of personal data.
The most widely covered case was the 2014 Cambridge Analytica scandal, which led Facebook to pay $725 billion to settle a lawsuit alleging significant data privacy violations.
In 2022, Facebook also paid a €265 million fine to the European Union for allowing personal data to be extracted from its site.
And last year, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined the company a record €1,2 billion for transferring European users' data outside the jurisdiction.
Facebook is currently appealing that decision.
3. Facebook has turned the Internet into a political arena
By offering targeted advertising, Facebook has become a major platform for election campaigns around the world.
For example, in the five months before the 2020 US presidential election, then-President Donald Trump's team spent more than $40 million on advertising on this social network, according to Statista research.
Facebook also played a part in changing politics from the people - enabling diverse groups of users to come together, run campaigns and plan actions on a global level.
Facebook and Twitter are believed to have been key during the Arab Spring for coordinating protests and spreading news of what was happening on the ground.
But the use of Facebook to achieve political goals has been criticized for some of its consequences, including the impact on human rights.
In 2018, Facebook agreed with a United Nations report that it had failed to prevent people from using the platform to "incite offline violence" against the Rohingya people in Myanmar.
4. Facebook led to the dominance of Meta
With the help of the enormous success of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has built a technological empire that remains unchallenged in terms of the number of users and the power it has.
New and young companies, including Vocap, Instagram and Okulus, were bought and given a turbo boost under the umbrella of Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in 2022.
Today, Meta claims that more than three billion people use at least one of its products every day.
And when it could not buy rivals, the company was often accused of copying them - in order to maintain its dominance.
Facebook and Instagram's disappearing "stories" option is similar to a key feature on Snapchat.
Instagram "reels" are the company's answer to the challenge posed by the video-sharing app TikTok.
Threads is Meta's attempt to imitate X, once known as Twitter.
Tactics have become more important than ever, thanks to expanding competition and a more tightly regulated environment.
Meta was forced to sell GIF creator Giphy at a loss in 2022 after UK regulators blocked its ownership of the service over fears of excessive market dominance.
- Zuckerberg lost six billion dollars due to the fall of Facebook and Instagram
- For the first time in history - the daily number of Facebook users fell
- Facebook is no longer called Facebook
What will happen in the next 20 years?
The rise and continued dominance of Facebook is a testament to Mark Zuckerberg's ability to keep the site relevant.
But retaining the crown of the most popular social network will be a monumental challenge over the next 20 years.
Meta is currently investing heavily in building a business around the idea of Metaverse, which is said to be in the lead over rival tech giants such as Apple.
Artificial intelligence is also a big priority for this giant.
And as the company moves further away from its Facebook roots, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the ubiquitous little blue app.
Additional reporting: Iman Muhamed
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