Facebook celebrates its10 years and still appears a lot of ambition

Mark Zuckerberg talked about the beginnings of Facebook last week on the Open Compute Project Summit. Over a 1.2 billion Internet users now use social network originally created as a community site by a team of students at Harvard. Left behind on the mobile aspects, it now carries on this ground more than half of its advertising revenue.

The social network Facebook will celebrate its 10th anniversary tomorrow. It is February 4, 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook" with his classmates at Harvard, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin and Andrew McCollum. The site, designed as a way to connect students between them, offered them to build an online identity. He has since seen the development that we know to reach 1.2 billion members, one seventh of the world population.

"It was great to have this service and the community in the school," mentioned Mark Zuckerberg last week, on the occasion of the Open Compute Project Summit (devoted to the project launched in 2011 by Facebook share the design of equipment used in data centers). He did not expect then to the extent that the social network would take. He was well came to him one day someone could build a site of this type in the world, but "it was not came to mind as it could be that we would"

A foray into personal data

In ten years, Facebook and the economic activity it generates has evolved considerably. Businesses have opened there pages to bring their image and rally "fans". It is also, to some extent, become one of the management tools of the reputation of a brand, like other social media. Some companies use to recruit and network interactions are increasingly scrutinized by analysis tools marketing managers seeking to better understand the views of their customers and potential buyers. But Facebook is also very critical to have caused the exposure of private data and personal information that its members have sometimes provided a little lightly. Regular changes its settings have sometimes led to display data that should remain closed circle. 

Facebook company commenced trading in May 2012. The beginning was a bit chaotic, since the introduction highly publicized suffered technical problems that affected that day the computer system of the Nasdaq. Since last summer, the action rises. It was trading at 61.08 dollars at the last fence Nasdaq on January 31. Today, billions of updates to articles, messages and other content displayed on its walls, the information network is now seeking to be indexed in Search engine Graph, not without causing, again, a number of reservations on the protection of personal data. Much too intrusive since the judge must answer specific questions that may affect the protection of privacy. The engine was activated in July in the USA.

Activity on mobile has caught up 

In the mobile market, Facebook was a bit slow to react. At the time of its IPO, the delay had caused some skepticism among investors about the ability of social networks to monetize its services on smaller screens. Concerns that were not justified since the company said last week that more than half of its advertising revenue came from its mobile services. The company achieved $ 2.59 billion in the fourth quarter 2014 (+63% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012), with a profit of $ 523 million, exceeding analysts' expectations. Over the year, it generated $ 7.87 billion (+55%).

Facebook is also experimenting with new ways to present content. Last week, it presented Paper, an app for iPhone that offers new ways of sharing photos and articles. Other apps are also provided for various tasks.

Facebook is still trying to expand its global coverage and even claims to reduce the digital divide across continents. In August, it launched the initiative to this effect Internet.org with six other founding members (Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung) to connect to two-thirds of the global Internet population. Mark Zuckerberg suggests it feels responsibility to act on these issues. "There are not many companies in the world that have the resources and the means of Facebook at this level"

To celebrate its tenth year, the social network is expected to return to the way it has changed the world over the past decade and what they plan to do on the next. In 2014, its founder crosses himself another step. In May, he will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Discussion between Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook on the Open Compute Project Summit last week in San Jose Convention Center.