15 Things You Didn’t Know About Facebook
With over two billion users worldwide, Facebook has become part of daily life for many people. The article aims to share 15 surprising facts about Facebook, highlighting its significance in social media and its impact on communication and marketing.
1) Facebook is a leading social media platform, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues while at Harvard University. It launched on February 4, 2004, initially for Harvard students, later expanding to all college students, high school students, and finally anyone over 13 by 2009. By that year, Facebook became the top social network in the U.S. and has grown to include users globally.
2) The company held its initial public offering in 2012 and is now valued at $435 billion. Facebook has consistently evolved and expanded its services, acquiring other companies such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus. It is recognized as one of the most successful and influential businesses globally and ranks as the fourth most valuable brand, following Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
3) Facebook originally considered a feature called the “awesome button” instead of the “like button,” which was introduced in 2009. The idea was not approved by Mark Zuckerberg, who preferred the simpler “like” concept. Since its launch, more than 1.13 trillion likes have been given.
4) In 2012, Facebook outbid Twitter to buy Instagram for $1 billion. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had tried to purchase the app months earlier but was unsuccessful. Despite missing the deal, Dorsey benefited financially as an investor in Instagram.
5) As of July 2017, Facebook had over 2.01 billion monthly active users, with around 1.3 billion users active daily. Approximately 80% of all adult internet users have a Facebook account. The platform houses more than 300 petabytes of user data, which is a vast amount, comparable to the written works of all languages throughout history.
6) When Facebook experiences downtime, it costs the company about $24,420 per minute. While outages are rare, they can be expensive. The longest outage recorded was 2.5 hours in 2010, resulting in significant losses for Facebook.
Get Sameer Shaikh’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
7) Facebook users watch a total of eight billion videos daily, with over 500 million users viewing at least one video each day. This amounts to over 100 million hours of video watched on the platform daily.
8) Some countries have banned or restricted Facebook, with North Korea, Iran, and most of China having permanent bans. The platform was also blocked temporarily in places like Egypt and Malaysia during protests.
9) Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder, was Facebook’s first outside investor, putting $500,000 into the company in 2004, which he later sold for over $1 billion in 2012. He remains on Facebook’s board.
10) Facebook allows users to change their language settings to “pirate,” which alters the site’s terms into pirate-themed language for entertainment.
11) Cristiano Ronaldo is the most liked celebrity on Facebook, currently having over 122 million likes, surpassing Shakira, who had held the top position before him.
12) Each day, there are around 600,000 hacking attempts on Facebook, with approximately 160,000 accounts compromised daily. While most breaches are quickly dealt with, some high-profile cases have occurred. Mark Zuckerberg himself has been hacked several times.
13) Facebook’s hosting costs have grown significantly over the years. Initially, they were around $3,000 per month, but this rose to $10 million within four years, and by 2017, the company was spending about $30 million per month on hosting due to its vast number of users and servers.
14) Several companies such as Viacom, Google, and Microsoft have tried to buy Facebook over the years. Google first approached Facebook in 2004, but discussions did not progress. In 2005, Viacom offered $75 million for Facebook but was turned down. They later raised their offer to $1.5 billion, which was also rejected. In the same year, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, asked MySpace’s CEO about selling Facebook for $75 million, but he declined. Yahoo offered $1 billion in 2006, but since Zuckerberg anticipated the success of Facebook’s news feed, he declined. Microsoft made a $15 billion offer in 2007, which was also turned down. Instead, they agreed to buy 1.6 percent of Facebook for about $250 million.
15) WhatsApp’s co-founder, Brian Acton, was turned down for jobs at both Twitter and Facebook in 2009. This rejection led him to start WhatsApp, which Facebook later acquired for $19 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, had a salary of $770,000 in 2012. However, in 2013, he requested to be paid just $1 per year, and he has continued to receive this amount since then. Other wealthy leaders who also take $1 salaries include Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Meg Whitman.
