Detailed History of Facebook Switches 2004-12 [Research]
If you haven’t already, make sure you check out my fresh movie Timeline: The History of Facebook in Less than ninety Seconds. The movie was put together by Andy Greenhaw and is a dizzying excursion through Facebook switches from 2004-2012.
What’s amazing about this movie is that it only highlights the major switches. When I put together the research for the movie, I created a six-page document that detailed Facebook switches since the social network’s discreet beginnings. But for the sake of entertainment, we cut out most of it from the final product.
Now you get to see what was left on the cutting room floor. I used the Facebook Blog as my source for most of these switches, and I link to the specific blog entry where possible.
So here is the detailed history of Facebook switches. The transformation is amazing.
Are there any major switches missing? Please let me know so that I can update my list!
[wptabs mode=”horizontal”] [wptabtitle]2004-06[/wptabtitle] [wptabcontent]
- February: Launched as TheFacebook.com, limited only to Harvard students
- March: Expanded to Stanford, Columbia and Yale
- No photos, wall, news feed, events or pages yet
- Reached 1M users
- Purchased facebook.com domain for $200k and dropped “the”
- Introduced Photos
- September: High school version launched
- January: Friend Details (how you know your friends)
- February: High School and College Facebook Merged
- March: Redesigned Groups and Events
- Spring: Expanded to include work networks
- Spring: Facebook Mobile Texts
- Spring: My Messages Page launched
- Spring: Browse launched
- Spring: Mobile Photo Uploads
- Spring: My Photos page upgraded
- Summer: Search functionality added for former classmates and coworkers
- Summer: Global Groups and Events
- August 15: Facebook Development Platform Launched
- August 22: Facebook Notes
- Late August: Mobile Web
- September Five: News Feed and Mini-Feed launched
- September 8: Fresh privacy controls
- September: Added spam prevention systems
- September 26: Opened to all thirteen and up with valid email address
- October 27: Share links to articles, photos and movies
- October 31: Share Button
- November 15: News Feed Preferences
- Fall: Privacy controls for when you poke, message and add friends
- December: Profile picture photo album, keeps history of your profile photos
- January Ten: Mobile Web (again) announced for mobile friendly Facebook
- January Ten: Mobile Uploads
- January Ten: Mobile Texts
- January 17: List screen names for IM clients in contact info of profiles
- January 24: Redesign of My Privacy page
- February 7: Give virtual gifts
- March: Group Update Information and create Events from Groups
- March 14: Photo Sorting and Organizing
- March 15: Export photos directly from iPhoto to Facebook albums
- April 11: Navigation and profile simplification
- April 11: My Messages and My Shares switched to Inbox
- April 11: Network Pages launched
- April 20: Added “[user] is…” before each status update
- April 20: Friends’ three most latest updates on the home page
- April 20: See all friends’ updates at once
- April 20: RSS feed of friends’ updates
- April 20: Subscribe to a friend’s updates via SMS
- April 20: Update status from your phone by sending an SMS to Facebook
- April 24: Bounty Shop accessible to blind via screen-reader
- May 14: Marketplace totally spinned out (classifieds)
- May 24: Facebook Platform launched
- June 22: Facebook Movie Launched (tagging, FB movie player, movie messaging, mobile integration)
- July: Post Attachments to the Wall
- July Ten: thirty Million Users
- August 15: Facebook for iPhone Mobile Site
- August 20: Send Facebook Messages to Facebook User or email address
- September Five: Public Search Listings
- November 6: Facebook Pages for Businesses launched
- November 6: Social Ads launched, making advertising relevant
- November 6: Share activities taken off of Facebook (Beacon)
- November 9: Publish your activities on Facebook Pages to News Feeds
- December: Make a tagged photo your profile photo
- December Five: Beacon made opt-in
- December Nineteen: Friend Lists launched
- January 7: one hundred fifty Million Users
- January 30: Bday Reminders
- February Four: Update to Terms of Use
- February 9: Like button added to friends’ content
- February 11: Schedule a virtual bounty on Valentine’s Day
- February 17: Improvised comeback to prior Terms of Use after uproar
- February 24: Group Administrators able to switch Group Name
- March Three: Fresh version of Facebook Marketplace (powered by Oodle)
- March Four: Fresh profiles for public figures and organizations (formerly Pages)
- March 11: Facebook available in Arabic and Hebrew
- March 11: Fresh Home Page design, real-time stream, fresh filters, improved Publisher, Highlights
- March 16: “Everyone” option available to create public posts
- April 8: two hundred Million Users
- April 27: View your Facebook stream on websites and applications outside of site
- April 30: Fresh Friends Page for organizing and filtering
- May Four: News Feed now updates in real time, no longer needing to be refreshed
- May 6: Filter friends by Recently Updated and view Only Status Updates
- May 8: Family Relationships added
- May 11: Facebook Talk updated to include Friend Lists and Offline Mode
- May 11: Notifications show up in real time above talk bar as pop-up alerts
- May Nineteen: Enlargened size limit of photo albums from sixty to two hundred photos
- May 20: Fresh Application Directory
- May 22: Update to Facebook Credits, removing a Zero
- May 29: Presentation of People in search results updated
- June Two: Removing Regional Networks
- June Four: Subscribe via SMS to friends’ status updates
- June 13: Facebook Usernames
- June Legitimate: Streamlined Inbox
- June 22: Display alternate names
- July 8: Create Events from the Publisher
- July 8: Facebook Fan Box on Websites
- July 15: two hundred fifty Million Users
- July 17: Fresh Instruments to Secure a Compromised Account
- July 22: Upload Photos or Movies via email
- August Ten: Improved Facebook Search
- August 20: Publish Facebook Page content to Twitter
- August 24: Invite Friends to an Event Who Attended Prior Event
- September 14: Tag Friends in Status Updates
- September 15: three hundred Million Users
- September 17: Log in with Username in addition to email address
- October Nineteen: Revamped Groups for consistent design and publish to News Feeds
- October 21: Retooled Bounty Shop, including Music
- October 23: Switch to two views: News Feed and Live Feed
- October 23: Friends Suggestion Box
- October 26: Share Count added to Share Button
- November 17: Xbox Connects with Facebook
- November 17: Fresh Privacy Policy Adopted
- December 9: Simpler Privacy Controls Launched/All Users Required to Update
- December 16: Relationship Anniversaries Added to Profile
- January Five: six hundred Million Users
- January Nineteen: Facebook for Feature Phones Application
- April 25: Improvements to Facebook Groups
- April 26: Expansion of Deals to Deals on Facebook
- May 30: seven hundred Million Users
- July 6: Movie Calling and Other Improvements to Facebook Talk
- August 11: Improvements to Games including Games Ticker
- August 23: More Controls to See Who You are Sharing With
- August 26: Thicker, Swifter Photos
- September 13: Improved Friend Lists, including Wise Lists and Notifications
- September 14: Subscribe Button to Subscribe to Non-Friends’ public content, permit non-friends to subscribe to your public content, and better control what content you see from your friends
- September 20: Top Stories on News Feed
- September 20: The Ticker
- September 22: eight hundred Million Users
- September 22: Facebook Timeline for Profiles
- October Ten: Facebook for iPad
- October Nineteen: Facebook Messenger Mobile Application
- November Ten: Latest Stories Filter
- December 7: Updated Facebook for Android Application
- December 8: Facebook Subscribe Button for Websites
- December 15: Timeline Available on Mobile
- January 12: Listen to Music with your Friends
- January Legitimate: Apps for Timeline launched, permitting frictionless sharing
- February 1: IPO Filing
- February 29: Facebook Timeline for Pages
- March Trio: Facebook Interest Lists
[wptabtitle] Pictures[/wptabtitle] [wptabcontent]