Facebook Turns $1 Trillion: Unveiling a Bag of Unknown Facts About Facebook
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The Internet has brought great revolutions in our lives. From being a medium of connection to a workplace, it serves every purpose. Undoubtedly, it is the most widely used social networking site. From kids to old-aged citizens, each one of us is present on Facebook.
With an enormous number of users, it is even expanding its services and features. Besides connecting people, it has even become a stage for blooming talent. It has even become a far-reaching market for business professionals.
Facebook becomes a $1 trillion company, as per the latest valuation on June 28, 2021, thereby becoming the newest company scaling such a valuation. This web application was founded back only in 2004, and now it has joined the $1 trillion club, matching shoulders with the other older companies like is a startling fact indeed!
Today's Facebook has loads of unknown facts and figures.
Curious?
So, let's dive into some of the never known before facts about our favorite social media platform!
Facebook - Company Highlights
| Company Name | |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | California, United States |
| Industry | Social Media & Advertising |
| Founders | Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes |
| Founded | February 2004 |
| CEO | Mark Zuckerberg |
From Facemash to Facebook
Facebook's birthday
The Blue color scheme of Facebook
From 'Awesome' to 'Like'
Can the founder of Facebook be blocked on Facebook?
The story of Chris Putnam
Countries with the highest user base
Countries that have banned Facebook
Facebook's data storing capacity
When Facebook is down
Facebook in its early years
Does Facebook reward people?
When did Facebook reach the trillion-dollar mark?
Facebook and its ConnectU connection!
Mark Zuckerberg did never sell out Facebook!
Facebook added "Social" and became a "Social Network"
Sheryl Sandberg took Facebook to new heights
Mark Zuckerberg wore a tie to symbolize seriousness
"The Social Network" catapulted the popularity of Facebook
Popular pages on Facebook
The most popular type of content on Facebook
Companies owned by Facebook
How much time is spent by a person on Facebook?
The growth rate of Facebook users
Facebook's engagement time
Internet.org
Facebook in rural areas
FAQ
From Facemash to Facebook
The credit for founding Facebook goes to Mark Zuckerberg. He is even the CEO of this most popular networking site. However, Facebook wasn't born at an instant. It was preceded by Facemash. Facemash was developed in 2003 when Harvard was in its second year at Harvard University. However, Facemash wasn't a social media site like Facebook.
However, it grew popular soon. After this, Mark along with some of his friends created "The Facebook" in 2004. With time, even this new website grew popular and developers put more effort into it. The domain from "The Facebook" was changed to "Facebook" in 2005. "The" was removed later on
Facebook's birthday
The date 4th February is widely celebrated as Happy Friends Day. Hence, Facebook was launched to commemorate the day. Facebook was at first used to connect with friends and relatives all across the world. We can also call 4th February the birthday of Facebook. It even serve the purpose of the day perfectly.
The Blue color scheme of Facebook
You must have thought sometimes why Facebook is blue? Was blue Mark Zuckerberg's favorite color? No, that's not the case. Mark Zuckerberg has been diagnosed with color blindness. He faces difficulty in identifying red and green colors. This is the first reason why Facebook is blue.
Blue is even the symbol of trust, peace, and security. Some people even consider this reason to be behind the blue color scheme of Facebook.
From 'Awesome' to 'Like'
The engineers who had developed Facebook wanted the 'Like' button to be an 'Awesome' button. However, this was a proposal that wasn't accepted by Mark Zuckerberg. Hence, finally, the 'Like' button was introduced on the site. This information finds its sources: the main engineer from Andrew Bosworth.
Can the founder of Facebook be blocked on Facebook?
No developer will like to be blocked on his platform. Just like this, even Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't even like to be blocked on Facebook. This is why you can never block Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook.
The story of Chris Putnam
Chris Putnam serves as an engineer at Facebook. However, he wasn't recruited through the normal procedure followed by Facebook? He along with two friends had hacked Facebook in 2006. The situation he created by spreading worms into Facebook profiles couldn't be solved. At last, Facebook interviewed him and hired him as an engineer. He is popularly known as The First Facebook Hacker.
Countries with the highest user base
The India has the highest user base with about 330 million users. Following the India in United States, having about 190 million users. After this, is Indonesia with around 140 million users. Gone are the days when Orkut was the ruling networking site in Brazil and India. However, Facebook replaced Orkut within less time.
Pratyusha Srivastava
Countries that have banned Facebook
However, it might be surprising and sad for you to know that there are some countries where Facebook is banned. This ban is not temporary but permanent. These countries where Facebook is banned are China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
Facebook's data storing capacity
Facebook has data centers where every minute of data of all the users is stored. From basic profile information to messages, Facebook has to store a really large amount of data. You will be amazed to know that about 300 Petabytes of data is stored by Facebook. (1 million Gigabytes is exactly equal to 1 Petabyte.)
Even if you go to write the history of humankind from day one and store it, you will need only 50 Petabytes. However, Facebook stores about 6 times this data at its data centers.
What happens when Facebook goes down?
Sometimes, like other brand popular sites, even Facebook goes down. It might be irritating for you to see this notification popping for you. However, even Facebook suffers major losses due to this.
It has been estimated that this popular site suffers a loss of about 30,000 USD for every minute when the site would be down. Such an incident had happened in 2014. Facebook had to bear the loss of 429,000 USD when the site was down for only 19 minutes.
Facebook in its early years
This most popular site had to go through lots of criticisms during its early years. From issues regarding its real founder to issues regarding the user's privacy, Facebook had to stand out of lots of criticisms.
Does Facebook reward people?
Yes, Facebook rewards people who could detect security drawbacks in its products. The person should join the 'Bug Bounty Program' and report the bug or issue he/she detected.
When did Facebook reach the trillion-dollar mark?
Facebook was exactly 17 years and 3 billion users old when its valuation became $1 trillion on June 28, 2021. As soon as Facebook reached $1 trillion, it became the youngest company to achieve such a feat!
Some other companies that are capped at $1 trillion includes:
- Amazon was founded in 1994 and reached $1 trillion in 2018.
- Microsoft was founded in 1975 and achieved the feat in 2019.
- Saudi Aramco was founded in 1933 and was billed at $1 trillion in 2019.
Facebook and its ConnectU connection!
ConnectU was meant to be a website that would help fellow Harvard mates to connect with each other. Now, as Zuckerberg was also a student of the same university and good with programming, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra, and others from HarvardConnection approached Mark to join the team. They pitched Zuckerberg about ConnectU, a social networking website that would "make some waves on campus," as they mentioned in 2003.
Little did they know that Mark would be founding thefacebook.com in the next year itself. In fact, it was after 50 emails that they found that Mark Zuckerberg was working on a different project.
Piyush Mishra
Mark Zuckerberg did never sell out Facebook!
As soon as Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook it started getting recognition far and wide. Mark was insisted by many to sell out Facebook in 2006 when Yahoo offered $1B for the website but Zuckerberg has other plans.
He was only 22 back then and geared to make $300 million. Furthermore, he raised $15 billion the next year itself despite the pressure. Ultimately, Facebook remained independent to date.
Facebook added "Social" and became a "Social Network"
Facebook was a website and in September 2006, it launched the new "News Feed" section. This news feed officially added the badge of "social" of "social network."
Sheryl Sandberg took Facebook to new heights
Mark Zuckerberg once said, "I never hire someone unless I'd work for them in an alternate universe." He took Sheryl Sandberg onboard in March 2008, as the Chief Operating Officer.
Pre-hire revenue - $56 million
Present revenue - $28 billion
Sheryl certainly contributed a major part to its success!
Seema Banerjee
Mark Zuckerberg wore a tie to symbolize seriousness
Facebook was in its startup stage when the 2008 recession hit the markets. While in the wake of 2009 Facebook was yet to recover from the financial crash. Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly started the new year with a resolution where he decided to wear a tie to work every single day for 12 months to signify the year as a serious one for Facebook.
He didn't miss it for a single day!
"The Social Network" catapulted the popularity of Facebook
The Social Network, the movie based on the real-life of Mark Zuckerberg and the birth of Facebook was set to be released in 2010, before which Zuckerberg felt apprehensive of the movie and believed that it would make him look bad.
However, after the movie was released, it was received well and though it didn't make Mark look entirely good, he didn't suggest hiding anything. The movie was a roaring success and further catapulted the popularity of Facebook!
Popular pages on Facebook
The most popular page on Facebook is its own official page 'Facebook' itself. It has over 214 million followers. It is followed by the pages of Samsung with over 159 million followers.
The third most popular page on Facebook is the page of Cristiano Ronaldo. This soccer player has over 122 million followers. Mark Zuckerberg ranks fourth in this list with over 116 million followers.
The most popular type of content on Facebook
Millions of photos and videos are posted on Facebook in a minute. However, the most loved type of content is the videos. Each video is shared about 89.5 times more as compared to photos and text posts.
Companies owned by Facebook
To expand its business empires, Facebook has taken over the ownership of various companies. In 2012, Facebook owned Instagram for 1 billion USD. In 2014, Facebook owned WhatsApp for 19 billion USD. Today, Facebook owns about 82 companies worldwide.
How much time is spent by a person on Facebook?
About 58 minutes is spent by a person on Facebook. However, this does not imply that the person will take about 5 to 10 minutes to go through each post. On average, a person spends only 1.7 seconds going through a post. This time is very crucial for marketers as they have to gain the attention of their audience within this small time.
The growth rate of Facebook users
About eight to ten users sign-up to Facebook every second. This is why Facebook is the social networking platform with the highest user base.
Facebook's engagement time
It had been noted that posts uploaded on Facebook within the time frame 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. EST result in 88% more engagement than posts uploaded at other hours. This has been regarded as the time most fruitful for marketers.
Internet.org
In August 2013, Facebook collaborated with six companies to avail network services better. In some countries, it was even made free. This service is known as internet.org. With about 50 million users from 24 countries, this has become popular among various people.
Facebook in rural areas
Out of every four people, three people use Facebook in urban areas. However, this does not mean that Facebook isn't popular in rural areas. About 66% of Facebook users in America are from rural areas.
Conclusion
However, this is not the end. The list can go on and on. It will be even more surprising for you to know that this social media site was used in the formulation of Iceland's Constitution. Yes, it's true. Iceland considers Facebook because most of its residents use Facebook.
While countless people are using Facebook, there are even pools of fake accounts. You should always beware and conscious of fake accounts. However, if any suspicious activity is detected, Facebook bans the account. Facebook is concerned about the security of its users. However, it even keeps a watch on the activity of its users for marketing.
Facebook is one of the most widely used platforms. Being present on a social media platform, one should be conscious about their activities. If used properly, Facebook can prove to be a boon.
FAQ
What was Facebook earlier known as?
Facebook was earlier known as Facemash.
When was Facebook launched?
Facebook was launched on 4th February 2004.
Is Facebook Banned In Some Countries?
Yes, Facebook is banned in countries like China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
Who was the first person who hacked Facebook?
Chris Putnam is the first person who hacked Facebook.
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