Facebook celebrates 20 years of ‘revolution’; see what changed – 02/02/2024 – Tech

Founded 20 years ago as a simple virtual space to meet friends, Facebook has become a battle-hardened giant that, despite being thought to be just for parents and boomers, continues to grow.

“I’ll never forget the day I ran to my school’s Mac lab and signed up for Facebook,” Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg told AFP.

“You felt at the same time that you were part of this small and exclusive community where your parents, grandparents and teachers were not (…), but also part of something much bigger”, he recalls.

Launched as thefacebook.com by Mark Zuckerberg and three friends on February 4, 2004, the portal was available only to Harvard College students. It was opened to the general public in 2006.

Facebook has become a place to connect with almost everyone, everywhere. In 2023, it is estimated that it will be used by more than 3 billion people monthly, a growth of 3% compared to the previous year.

“When it launched, Facebook was revolutionary,” Enberg said.

“It’s hard to overstate the impact it has had on shaping everything from pop culture to the way we behave on the Internet,” he added.

The more users interacted on the social network, which displayed photos, comments and other posts, the more it could display ads to make money from the vast amount of information people shared.

Facebook is recognized for having helped open the door for content to “go viral” and for having promoted the trend towards purely digital media outlets.

Advertising giant

Facebook has gained a reputation for buying, or copying, its potential competitors. It now powers a “family” of platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp.

Still in charge of the company, Zuckerberg maintained the strategy of investing heavily in acquiring users before integrating methods to generate profits, such as targeted advertising.

“It continues to be irresistible to advertisers thanks to its reach and performance,” noted Enberg.

Along with Google, Facebook has become an Internet advertising giant, with profits reaching US$23 billion (R$113.1 billion at current prices) in 2022, a year considered bad for the company based in Vale do Sul. Silicon.

The platform “is part of the digital panorama”, especially for “millennials” born in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the analyst.

The business model of using personal information to offer more content that captures users’ attention, as well as targeted advertising, has led to lawsuits and fines for Facebook.

From accusations that Russia used the platform to try to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, to accusations in 2021 that directors put profit before users’ well-being, it has put it in the eye of the storm. .

Despite this, Facebook continues to grow, which has allowed it to invest in innovations such as Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality.

With the argument that Zuckerberg dreamed of a virtual and immersive world, which he would call “metaverse”, Facebook changed the name of its controlling company to “Meta” at the end of 2021.

“There is no alternative”

“It’s possible that we are less involved, but we don’t leave because there really is no alternative,” explained Carolina Milanesi, creative strategies analyst.

Facebook was in vogue with the addition of “groups”, which allow you to form communities based on common interests, and gained popularity with the Marketplace functions for buying or selling products.

Enberg calls the purchase of Instagram in 2012 one of Facebook’s best decisions as part of the move to smartphones. The move eliminated a rival, provided a new platform for advertising and attracted young users who were losing interest in the old network.

Today, more than half of Facebook users are between 18 and 34 years old, according to research by DataReportal. The level of user engagement remains, however, difficult to measure.

“I rarely use Facebook, but what I post on Instagram automatically appears on Facebook,” says Milanesi.

“So I am certainly counted as ‘active’. The numbers may not reflect reality,” he adds.