Two Decades Of Milestones: A 20 Year Timeline Of Facebook’s History And Record-Breaking Growth

Facebook turns 20 years old on February 4th, 2024. The human mind cannot process the growth Facebook has seen since a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the social network in his Harvard dorm room.

But in honor of Facebook‘s 20th anniversary, I’ve broken down a timeline of the past 20 years and the incredible milestones Facebook has reached along the way.

20 Year Anniversary: A Timeline Of Facebook’s First 20 Years

Year 1 (2004): (The)Facebook’s first day of existence was February 4th, 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg (19yrs old), Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. It was a Wednesday and an otherwise normal day in Boston with temperatures ranging from 24F to 55F. It was a leap year. The Chinese Zodiac sign was the Monkey. And the #1 song on the Billboard charts was ‘Hey Ya!’ by Outkast.

Facebook would hit 1 million users by the end of 2004 with rapid growth across college campuses in America. A .edu email address was required to sign up at the time.

Year 2 (2005). In Facebook’s second year, they opened up to high school students and international college students but still kept it restricted to .edu email addresses. By the end of 2005, Facebook had grown to six million active monthly users and growth was meteoric.

In 2005, Facebook introduced Tagging and Photo Sharing. It was the WILD WEST when it came to sharing photos. Friends were uploading albums with no name or theme with 300 out-of-focus pictures taken on a digital camera at the bar the night before.

It was also in 2005 that TheFacebook dropped ‘the’ from the name, rebranding to just ‘Facebook.’ It’s a move that Sean Parker was widely credited for due to the Social Network but what’s often lost in that story is it cost Facebook $200,000 just to buy Facebook.com and drop ‘the.’ With inflation, that’s over $250K today and FB earns over $319 million a day but it’s still a lot of money.

Year 3 (2006): In 2006, Facebook rolled out what is arguably the most popular feature of all-time…News Feed. They also rolled out Mini Feed which showed recent activity.

It was also in 2006 that Facebook opened the doors to everyone over the age of 13 and they dropped the .edu email requirement. This brought monthly active users up to 12 million. I remember at the time thinking boomers would ruin the place and I’d never use Facebook if my parents were on it…How naive I was.

Year 4 (2007): By mid-2007, Facebook had reached 30 million monthly active users. This was the year that NewsFeed became the flagship destination of Facebook and the first thing users saw when they logged in. FB also rolled out the ability to send ‘Gifts’ to friends and launched business profiles which quickly reached 100,000.

Year 5 (2008): This is a year that Facebook saw meteoric growth. FB reached 100 million monthly active users by August of 2008. They also rolled out Chat, the Wall on users’ profiles, their first Facebook for iPhone app, Live Feed, and they opened their first international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. 2008 was also the first year that Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the Forbes Billionaire list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion at just 23-years-old.

Facebook Timeline: Meteoric Growth After First 5 Years

Year 6 (2009): In February of 2009, Facebook introduced the first mainstream ‘like’ button the Internet had ever seen, a functionality that grew so popular it’s on virtually every website on the planet these days. Growth in 2009 exploded from 150 million monthly active users in 2009 up to 360 million by December. The ‘like’ button was a game-changer.

BroBible joined Facebook on July 21, 2009. Obviously a huge milestone for everyone involved.

Year 7 (2010): 500 million!!!! In 2010, Facebook reached 500 million monthly active users and was growing unlike anything else in Silicon Valley.

By 2010, Facebook had over 50 million photos uploaded to its service and they introduced the ‘@’ tag functionality to start created a complex web of tags amongst content. They also rolled out Facebook Questions in 2010 as well as Milestones which is similar to what we now know as Memories.

This also marked the year of David Fincher’s The Social Network, a dramatization of the creation of Facebook and what went on behind the scenes in the earliest days at Harvard. 2010 was also the year memes came to exist and the most popular meme that year on Facebook was the ‘Doge’ meme. Other popular memes that year were Antoine Dodson and Pizza Rat.

Year 8 (2011): By the end of this year, Facebook was seeing 845 million monthly active users. By June of that year, that translated to over 1 trillion page views. The most popular meme on Facebook in 2011 was ‘Like My Status’ followed by Planking, Scumbag Steve, and Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday.’

In 2011, Facebook introduced ‘Timeline,’ the new version of profile pages. Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth reached an estimated $17.5 billion. He was also the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at the time.

Year 9 (2012): 2012 was a year of big $$$$. Facebook’s IPO on May 18, 2012 raised $16 BILLION and was the largest tech IPO in history at that point. Facebook reached 955 million monthly active users by June and in September, Mark Zuckerberg made his first major acquisition and purchased Instagram for $740 million.

In October, Facebook would reach 1 BILLION MONTHLY USERS. It was a milestone that nobody could’ve ever imagined a decade prior.

In March, Mark Zuckerberg would marry Dr. Priscilla Chan whom he’d dated since their Harvard days together. It was a surprise backyard wedding the day after Facebook IPO’d.

Year 10 (2013): In 2013, Facebook continued growth and revenue reached $7.87 billion, marking a 55% increase from the year prior. The 10 most talked about topics on Facebook in Year 10 were: 1. Pope Francis, 2. Election, 3. Royal Baby, 4. Typhoon, 5. Margaret Thatcher, 6. Harlem Shake, 7. Miley Cyrus, 8. Boston Marathon, 9. Tour de France, and 10. Nelson Mandela.

Year 11 (2014): Things moved so, so fast in 2014. In February, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $21.8 billion, the app which which would become a pillar of Meta’s product offerings, an app that has 2.78 BILLION unique monthly active users worldwide right now.

In March, Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion. Later that year FB would acquire Atlas. It would also be the year that Business Manager was launched.

Year 12 (2015): In 2015, Facebook got more serious about privacy and launched a Safety Check tool for users as well as the ability for users to flag stories as ‘false news.’ This same year, Facebook was the #1 most-used smartphone app in the world. Facebook Messenger was #3 and Instagram was #8. They were DOMINATING the app scene which led to revenue growth of 36.85% from the year prior.

In 2015, CEO Mark Zuckerberg welcomed his first child into the world with Dr. Priscilla Chan, ushering in a new era of Fatherhood for Zuck.

Year 13 (2016): By July 2016, Facebook Messenger saw one billion monthly users, just a massive milestone. This became the second Facebook app to record over 1 billion monthly users but not the last… Facebook had also reached 1.86 BILLION monthly active users by December 2016.

It was also 2016 when ‘Reactions’ rolled out, a major expansion on the ‘like’ button which allowed users to provide a lot more personal feedback.

On October 9, 2016 the ‘Mark Zuckerberg Smoking Meats‘ meme was born and the world was better off since. His first Smokin’ Meats video has racked up 620,000 reactions, 430,000 comments and 20,400 shares.

Year 14 (2017): This year Facebook’s monthly active users would reach 2.13 billion, an insane 17% increase from the prior year. At that time, the total world population was 7.6 billion, meaning Facebook had captured nearly 30% of the entire global population as monthly users. Facebook’s revenue increased 47% from 2016 to $40 billion.

Events were massive in 2017, with over 500,000 participating in the Women’s March on DC in January. That marked the largest Facebook Event to date at that point.

Year 15 (2018): In 2018, Facebook reached approximately 3 billion monthly unique users and was by far the most used social network on earth. FB CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth had reached $71 billion making him the 5th wealthiest person on the planet behind Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos.

Year 15 (2019): By December of this year, Facebook had reached 1.66 billion DAILY active users. The company rolled out a new logo design as well as revamped mobile app designs and complete encryption on mobile and desktop apps. 2019 was also a year Facebook become more focused on AI research.

This was also when the ‘News’ tab rolled out which, at the time, was a game-changer for publishers like BroBible.

Year 16 (2020): By September, Facebook had reached 1.82 billion daily active users and 2.80 billion monthly active users. Q1 revenue was an astounding $17.74 billion and there were 58,604 employees working for the company.

It was an interesting year with the pandemic. All public events from the company were canceled that year. It was also an election year which drove a lot of traffic to publishers. Facebook also acquired Giphy in 2020 to become FB’s GIF library for replies and posts.

This was also a year that Zuck became pretty damn cool, in my mind, with the ‘Zuck Surfing Meme’ from Hawaii. The CEO was photographed surfing in Hawaii and we started to get glimpses of his awesome life behind the scenes.

Year 17 (2021): By Q3, Facebook’s daily active users were 1.93 billion. It was also this year that Facebook announced they’d rebrand to ‘Meta’ for the parent company’s name. 2021 was also the first year a ‘Year In Review’ was rolled out to users for Facebook and Instagram.

In this year, Facebook rolled out glasses with Ray-Ban allowing users to take pictures, videos, listen to music, and interact with Facebook functionality. These glasses would be updated two years later to include Meta’s AI.

Year 18 (2022): By March, Facebook had reached 2.94 billion monthly active users. A lot of focus was paid toward the Metaverse. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth had reached $117 billion.

Year 19 (2023): On March 7, 2023, Facebook reached 2 billion daily active users for the first time, an absolutely unbelievable metric. They launched Imagine with AI, my favorite AI image generator on the Internet. 2023 was also the year that Mark started publicly pursuing MMA as a hobby.

Mark Zuckerberg called it a ‘Year of Efficiency‘ in a memo to all employees. His stated goals of 2023 were “(1) to make us a better technology company and (2) to improve our financial performance in a difficult environment so we can execute our long term vision.”

2023 also saw the launch of Threads which smashed all of the existing records for user growth.

Year 20 (2024): ?????? Well, it’s not all question marks. Facebook has made a huge splash in AI with their Glasses. Reels are exploding across Instagram and Facebook. A new algorithm is rumored to roll out to Facebook Feed, and a lot LOT more to come. BroBible is currently reaching over 20 million users a month on Facebook, and 213 million Facebook users in 2023, which is just a humblebrag I thought I’d toss in there at the end.