Milestones in Facebook's road to fame

New Delhi: Popular social network Facebook has turned ten today. In its first decade Facebook has garnered users from all over the globe keen to communicate with friends, post updates and share photographs.The social network - which was established by Mark Zuckerberg while at Harvard University - has grown to become a multi-billion dollar company. The company has recently reported revenues of about $2.5 billion from 750 million daily users.But the birthday celebrations are not without fears and uncertainty. These include the rising popularity of other new photo-sharing and messaging services such as Snapchat, Whatsapp and Instagram, an aging user base, and teenagers deserting the platform. "It is the largest social network in the world, but many are questioning whether it will survive another 10 years," analysts question."Still Facebook is in a good position to expand and grow further, thus creating a strong 'network effect' and adding new services to keep users engaged."A recent Princeton University study predicted Facebook could lose up to 80% of its users by 2017.Here's a look at some key developments happened in Facebook's ten years history:February 2004: Mark Zuckerberg starts Facebook as a sophomore at Harvard University.March 2004: Facebook begins expansion to other colleges and universities.June 2004: Facebook moves headquarters to Palo Alto, California.September 2004: The company launches the Wall, which allows people to write personal musings on profile pages. Lawsuit filed against Facebook claiming that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from a company co-founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and a third person at Harvard.September 2005: Facebook expands to include high schools.May 2006: Facebook introduces work networks, thus letting people with a corporate email address to join.September 2006: Facebook lets anyone over 13 join. News Feed introduced; it collects friends' Wall posts in one place. Although that led to complaints about privacy, News Feed became one of Facebook's most popular features.May 2007: Facebook launches Platform, a system that allowed outside programmers develop tools for sharing photos, taking quizzes and playing games. It also announced a number of third party applications will also be announced, including Microsoft, Amazon, Slide, RockYou, Box.net, Red Bull, Washington Post, Project Agape, Prosper, Snapvine, iLike, PicksPal, Digg, Plum and others. Applications served their own ads and/or conduct transactions with users. October 2007: Microsoft said it will invest $240 million for a minority 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook, a price that values the social networking site at $15 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will be the exclusive advertising platform for Facebook. November 2007: Facebook unveils its Beacon program, a feature that broadcasts people's activities on dozens of outside sites. Yet another privacy backlash leads Facebook to give people more control over Beacon, before Facebook ultimately scraps it as part of a legal settlement.March 2008: Facebook hires Sheryl Sandberg as chief operating officer, snatching the savvy, high-profile executive from Google Inc.April 2008: Facebook Chat introduced.February 2009: Facebook introduces "Like," allowing people to endorse other people's posts.June 2009: Facebook surpasses News Corp.'s Myspace as the leading online social network in the U.S.August 2010: Facebook launches location feature, allowing people to share where they are with their friends and strangers.October 2010: "The Social Network," a movie about Zuckerberg and the legal battles over Facebook's founding, is released. It gets eight Academy Awards nominations and wins three.June 2011: Google launches rival social network called Plus. The Winklevoss twins end their legal battle over the idea behind Facebook. They had settled with Facebook for $65 million in 2008, but later sought more money.September 2011: Facebook introduces Timeline, a new version of the profile page. It shows highlights from a person's entire Facebook life rather than recent posts.November 2011: Facebook agrees to settle federal charges that it violated users' privacy by getting people to share more information than they agreed to when they signed up to the site. As part of a settlement, Facebook will allow independent auditors to review its privacy practices for two years. It also agrees to get approval from users before changing how the company handles their data.December 2011: Facebook completes its move to Menlo Park, Calif. Its address is 1 Hacker Way.January 2012: Facebook begins making Timeline mandatory.February 2012: Facebook files for an initial public offering of stock. A few weeks later, it unveils new advertising opportunities for brands, allowing messages from them to mix in with Facebook status updates and photos.April 2012: Facebook announces plans to buy Instagram, a photo-sharing social network, for $1 billion in cash and stock. It also discloses it plans to list its stock on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "FB."May 2012: Facebook sets a price range of $28 to $35 for its IPO, then increases it to $34 to $38. On May 17, Facebook prices its IPO at $38 per share, and the stock begins trading the next day. The following week, the stock price starts dropping amid concerns about Facebook's ability to keep growing revenue and sell ads on mobile devices.That month, Facebook also updates its policy to give users more clarity on how information they share is used by the company. The company also signals that it may start showing people ads on websites other than Facebook. Other companies already do this. How would that work? Users who click on an ad on Facebook.com could see the advertised product pop up in ads on other sites.August 2012: Facebook updates its app for iPhones and iPads to make it speedier and less clunky. Government clears Facebook's Instagram deal.September 2012: Facebook closes on Instagram deal, whose value has dropped to about $740 million, with Facebook's falling stock price. Unlike many other acquisitions, Facebook has promised to keep it going, rather than shut it down. Facebook plans to use Instagram's dozen or so employees to help improve Facebook's own mobile applications.October 2012: Facebook says it has 1 billion active users.December 2012: Facebook rolls out a messaging app called "Poke" to lukewarm reviews.January 2013: Facebook unveils a search feature that lets users quickly sift through their social connections for information about people, interests, photos and places.March 2013: Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg publishes book urging women to take leadership roles.April 2013: Facebook unveils a new experience for Android phones. The idea behind the new Home service is to bring content right to you, on the phone's home screen, rather than require you to check apps on the device.July 2013: Facebook rolls out Embedded Posts to everyoneJanuary 2014: Facebook adds Twitter-like trending topicsJanuary 30, 2014: Facebook launched the new social news app 'Paper' for iOS devices, in a bid to challenge the news and social aggregator apps like Flipboard, which presents stories in a magazine-style layout. The new app overhauls how users view status updates, photographs and videos posted by contacts. The slick, gesture-driven app will also come with several sections aggregating news stories and other links being shared by contacts and splits them into sections to create a customised news service. It would allow navigating via users news feed item-by-item by swiping a finger, while images come out full-screen together with captions above them. Users can even pan from left to right just by slanting their device.(With Agency inputs)