5 Surprising Facts About Facebook

Where would the internet be today if it weren’t for Facebook? When you think of the biggest success stories in the internet’s fairly short history, the longest chapter likely belongs to Mark Zuckerberg (and others) and his invention of Facebook. The social media site has evolved into a multimedia giant and now employs tens of thousands of people and pulls in over nine figures in revenue. Think you know everything about Facebook, though? Here are some surprising facts you might not have known.

5. Exclusive Club (At First)

If you happened to be around 17 to 22 years old around the time Facebook got started, there’s a good chance that you were one of the first people to know about the site. That’s because upon launch, Facebook was only available to students of Harvard before branching out into the Ivy League and then the rest of North American colleges. You needed a college email address to sign up for Facebook, but it then eventually opened to the public in 2006 for better or worse, as long as you were 13 years old per the terms of service.

4. A Decade of Trading

It feels like it was just yesterday when it was announced that Facebook had its initial public offering (IPO) and went public. However, it was now more than a decade ago as the company was openly traded starting on May 18, 2012. The stock, which is now known as Meta Platforms Inc., has been the subject of many headlines ever since. After a sketchy start, Facebook stock climbed to a peak of over $380 per share. It has come back down since then due to the economy and recent changes, putting it around 2018 levels.

3. Finding a Date

While you have likely used Facebook’s marketplace feature to buy used video games, furniture, etc., you might not know that you can also find a date. In mid 2018, Facebook announced that there would be a dating feature on its app that allowed you pretty much the same service that was provided by giants Tinder and Bumble. The official launch for the service came in late 2019 without much ballyhoo and is still around to this day. Get ready to hear “We met on Facebook Dating” in at least one wedding down the road.

2. Leaving the ‘Is’

Early adopters of Facebook will remember when your status simply read “(Your name) is…” and then you filled out the rest. It was a unique feature that paved the way for many grammatical errors because you were handcuffed by what you could say. For example, “Mark Zuckerberg is Hey does anyone want to come over to my place later for the game?” In 2007, Facebook dropped the ‘is’ part of the status allowing you full freedom to post.

1. Metaverse of Madness

You’ve probably met at least one person that has said that they’re done with Facebook forever due to privacy policies, their feelings on Zuckerberg or anything in between. However, people that boycott Facebook might not know that they’re still supporting the company through the Meta platform that nearly 80 percent of all internet users take part in each day. Other platforms owned by Facebook include Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp and Mapillary just to name a few.