Happy 9th Birthday Facebook!

Facebook, the much loved social networking giant turns 9 today! Let’s take a look at the 9 most important changes Facebook underwent in these 9 year.

2013: Graph Search Launched just last month

Facebook’s Graph Search has been in the news quite often. While some praise FB’s attempt to do something new, others just rubbish the Graph Search as another dig at Google.

2012: Facebook Goes Public

Though 2012 was probably the year Facebook got the most exciting apps and developments like Facebook Camera, Expecting a Baby, Facebook Stories, we think going public was the highlight of the year for the social networking giant.

2011: Timeline

Perhaps the most controversial feature Facebook launched, 2011 was the year of the timeline. Everyone  a love-hate relationship with the new way to view profiles and there are still hate status updates put up! However, Facebook did not give any heed to the negative reports and went right ahead with the timeline making it mandatory for people to shift.

2010: Facebook Privacy Redesigned

The feature Facebook receives much flak for from both critics and users alike is their Privacy Settings. In 2010, Facebook Privacy Settings underwent a major change giving users the option to share content the way they want.

2009: Facebook Pages

While Facebook pages always existed for celebrities and the well-known, Pages underwent a major change in 2009. According to the then Press Release: Those who use Facebook’s new public profiles, currently called Facebook Pages, will be able to share all types of content with an unlimited number of users. Shared content can be brief messages or may include photos and videos and will soon appear in News Feed, Facebook’s popular service that streams what people you care about are doing, thinking, saying, watching, photographing and reading right now. Facebook users can then easily make connections, comment on posted content and join the online conversations with the famous – just as they can with a family member, friend or colleague.

2008: Facebook Chat

The Facebook Chat feature which has now evolved to include groups and even video chatting, Facebook messenger for mobile, etc was originally launched in 2008. The feature showed users which of their friends were online at the same time as them enabling them to chat instantly.

2007: Facebook Mobile

2007 was definitely a happening year for Facebook, the year when it began the path to generation of revenue that has made it a giant today. In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook adds and also opened the platform for developers bringing to users games like Farmville,  by CouponDropDown" style="color: #115eb7; text-decoration: underline;">Poker, etc along with other useful apps. However, the best feature of 2007 was Facebook Mobile. The feature that is today a Facebook app and has more users than the PC version was initially launched in 2007. Guess which mobile operator adapted it first? Apple? No. It was Blackberry!

2006: News Feed

The News Feed as we know it today or the Wall was rolled out by Facebook in 2006. When it was rolled out, users rebelled stating the feature was too cluttered or made it easy for spammers to post fake content or stalk people. For once Facebook obeyed public opinion and instead of doing away with the News Feed, introduced better Privacy options. We aren’t complaining now, are we?

2005: Facebook is Born

Facebook was born in 2005 and guess who were the first to get acces to Facebook? Highschoolers! After targeting High Schools, Facebook then moved on to enlist the support of companies like Microsoft and Apple before finally alloing everyone to access it a year later.