Celebrating Facebook’s 10th Birthday

This month, Facebook reaches its 10-year milestone. In many ways, Facebook has connected the world, and in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, given people “the power to share and stay connected… to build their own communities themselves.”  Now, Facebook is not only about sharing experiences but also helping people share information, ask and answer questions and solve problems together – bridging geography, language and culture.

1. From Will Oremus at Slate, a snapshot of what ‘The Facebook’ looked like 10 years ago, including a timeline of statistics and added features (courtesy of Facebook). Since February 2004, 201.6 billion friend connections have been made on the social network.
2. From Brandon Griggs at CNN, nine ways in which Facebook changed how we talk – including our use of ‘friend’ as a verb, and the welcoming of ‘unfriend’ to the digital-age vernacular.
3. From Max Knoblauch at Mashable, other popular trends in 2004 – including the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime show controversy, and ‘Hey Ya!’ by OutKast.
4. From Harry McCracken at TIME, predictions about the world sans Facebook – MySpace would have still eventually flagged, and Twitter would probably still exist, in some form.
5. From Ken Yeung at The Next Web, Facebook’s own present to its 1.23 billion users – a ‘Look Back’ at your 20 biggest moments shared on the social network.
6. From Brad Stone and Sarah Frier at Bloomberg, a personal interview with Mark Zuckerberg, discussing challenges and goals as Facebook ‘grows up.’
7. From Hanna Ingber at New York Times Bits, results from a poll of readers citing their specific experiences on Facebook over the past decade.
8. From Christina Bonnington at Wired, a peek at Facebook’s greatest innovations – News Feed, Like button and Graph Search, to name a few.
9. From Brett Molina at USA Today, an interactive timeline of Facebook’s defining moments and how it will continue to change our lives.
10. And, from Alyson Shontell at Business Insider, how to find your Facebook ID number. (Drum roll please – my personal profile coming in at #1,236,840,027.)