Facebook Success Story: Success Story of the Meta-Owned Social Networking Site

Facebook Success Story

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In the world of digitalisation, there are only a handful of people who are not on this social media platform, Facebook. Although the company, Facebook, began as a social network for particular college students, it has now evolved into an important tool for day-to-day socialising and business professionals.

As a small company owner, Facebook may be precisely what you need to find potential workers, get new clients, or see what your competitors are up to. And doing so – browsing content on Facebook– does not need creating your new Facebook profile.

Facebook is an American online social networking website owned by Meta Platforms. Mark Zuckerberg, along with other three Harvard University undergraduates, launched Facebook in 2004. Facebook is free to use, yet ads on the platform provider for the bulk of the gross profitability. Members may establish accounts, upload photos, join established communities, or start their own.

Facebook's popularity stems in part from creator Mark Zuckerberg's insistence from the beginning that members be truthful regarding who they really are, as phoney pages are just not permitted.

According to the company's business, transparency is necessary for developing interpersonal relationships, exchanging information and recommendations, and strengthening society as a whole. It also noted that the bottom-up, peer-to-peer networking of Facebook users makes it easier for businesses to connect with customers about their services and goods.

Know more about the Meta-owned company, Facebook, and how it is helpful to us, its business model, startup story, and much more by reading this article further.

Facebook - Company Highlights

Startup Name-Facebook
Parent-Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook, Inc)
Headquarters-Menlo Park, CA
Industry-Social Media Platform
Founders-Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
Founded-February 4, 2004
Areas Served-Worldwide(except blocking countries)
Current CEO-Mark Zuckerberg
Website-facebook.com

About Facebook

Facebook, a US-based online social media and social networking website is owned by Meta Platforms. The site's features include Timeline or wall, a section on the user's homepage where users can post content and friends can send messages, Status, which allows users to notify friends of their current location or set of circumstances, and News Feed, which notifies users of changes to their friends' statuses and profiles.

Through Facebook, the users can communicate with one another and send and receive messages. Besides, they can also signal their approval for posts and comments on Facebook using the Like button, which can also be seen on many other websites.

In 2006, Facebook allowed anybody above the age of 13 to join, expanding its enrolment beyond students. Advertisers were able to develop new and successful consumer connections, just as Zuckerberg expected.

In October 2021, Facebook announced that its parent business will be renamed Meta Platforms. The name change signalled a shift in focus to the "metaverse," an augmented reality realm in which people would participate. The Meta Platform now includes Facebook, the social networking platform.

Facebook - Industry

Customers can engage, produce, and share material and information through the social media market, which is made up of sales by entities (organizations, single traders, or partnerships). Social media platform users can exchange photos, videos, and audio clips.

This market generates revenue from advertising sales and other services provided through social networks. Advertising on social media and social media subscriptions are two different segments of the social media business.

The worldwide social media industry is predicted to increase at an annual pace (CAGR) of 39.7% from $159.68 billion in 2021 to $223.11 billion in 2022.

Businesses are reforming their operations and recovering from the effects of COVID-19, which had previously culminated in restrictive measures such as social distancing, the closure of commercial firms, and remote work, all of which caused operational challenges. Growing at a CAGR of 39%, the market is estimated to reach $833.50 billion in 2026.

With 46% of the global social media market in 2020, Asia Pacific was the most important region. The 2nd-largest area, North America, accounted for 32% of the worldwide market. Africa was identified as the fastest-growing region in the social media market between 2020-2021.

Facebook - Name, Logo, and Tagline

According to David Kirkpatrick's book The Facebook Effect, the name Facebook was picked because every Harvard student was given one of these, which held images of their classmates and were referred to as Facebook.

A majority of the American university students received face book directories, which consisted of individuals' names and photos and were distributed among the university students to help them know each other. This is where the name "Facebook" came from, the sole aim of which is to connect people with their friends and family via its social media platform. The small F sign on Facebook's site is considered to represent the name Facebook.

Facebook's tagline used to be, "It’s Free and Always Will be" which was changed to, "It’s Quick and Easy." It was changed silently between 6th and 7th August 2019, and Facebook didn't clarify the reason why.

Facebook - Founders and Team

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is an American businessman, media personality, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Meta Platforms, Inc. (previously called Facebook, Inc.), where he currently serves as chairman, CEO, and dominant shareholder. He is also a co-founder and board member of Breakthrough Starshot, a solar sail spacecraft development initiative.

Andrew McCollum

Andrew McCollum joined Philo, an entertainment-focused OTT streaming service, as CEO in 2014. Philo debuted countrywide in November 2017. Andrew was on Philo's board of directors, supervised the company's co-founders, and was one of the company's early investors before becoming CEO.

Andrew was a member of the founding team of Facebook before joining Philo, and he has a long-standing interest in the social design of products. Following Facebook, Andrew worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Flybridge Partners, two of Philo's investors. He is still an active angel investor and counsellor in the early stages of a company's development.

Chris Hughes

Chris Hughes (November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded and served as spokesperson for the online social networking and directory site Facebook with his Harvard companions. He was the editor-in-chief and publisher of The New Republic from 2012 until 2016. As of 2019, Hughes is a co-chair of the Economic Security Project.

Dustin Moskovitz

Dustin Moskovitz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Asana. He co-founded Good Ventures and the Open Philanthropy Project. He is also one of the co-founders of Facebook.

Eduardo Saverin

Eduardo Saverin is a B Capital Group co-founder and partner. Saverin is a co-founder of Facebook and the initial investor. Saverin is eager to put money into the next wave of technical developments. He has counselled and worked closely with an array of firms of different kinds and stages as a technology investor and supervisor, all of which share one consistent theme: a love for people-centric technology, as well as a mobile platform lean with pan-global ambitions.

The Facebook team last registered 71,970 full-time employees in December 2021.

Facebook - Startup Story

Facebook, a social networking website, was established on October 28, 2003, as "FaceMash" before rebranding as "The Facebook" on February 4, 2004. It was established by Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard University classmates. The website's designers initially limited membership to Harvard students.

Nonetheless, it was gradually expanded to include additional Boston-area colleges, the Ivy League, and finally most universities in the United States and Canada, businesses, and, by September 2006, everyone over the age of 13 with a valid email account.

In September 2004, the Wall was added to a Facebook user's online profile. This widely used feature allowed a user's friends to post information to their Facebook wall, and it rapidly became an important part of the social aspect of the network. Facebook had gained one million active members by the end of 2004. However, the firm was still lagging behind Myspace, the top online social network at that time, with five million users. Nevertheless, in the long run, MySpace failed to compete against Facebook.

2005 was a momentous occasion for the company. It was then that the idea of "tagging" people in photographs posted to the site was born. Tags were used to identify themselves and others in photos that were viewable to other Facebook friends. Facebook users can upload an unlimited amount of photos but the facial recognition feature of Facebook, which tagged the persons on the photograph earlier, is not there anymore now.

Outside of the United States, high school and university students were allowed to join the 'Facebook army' in 2005. By the end of that year, it had six million monthly active users.

Facebook - Mission and Vision

Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.

Based on the company’s social media service offerings, Facebook's corporate vision statement is “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, discover what’s going on in the world, and share and express what matters to them.”

This corporate vision demonstrates that the company is more than just an online social networking service. Rather, the firm aids in the gathering of information and meaningful dialogue among individual customers.

Facebook - Business Model and Revenue Model

Facebook makes money largely through showing commercials from businesses on its Facebook and Instagram apps. Ads contributed to 98% of Facebook's $86 billion revenue in 2020. The remaining 2% of profits came mostly from Oculus and Portal device sales, as well as development payment fees.

Facebook's business strategy is centred on providing its products and technologies to billions of users for free and then generating money by enabling businesses to show advertisements to Facebook's consumers. Advertisers pay Facebook auction-based pricing depending on supply and demand.

This implies that the individuals who consume Facebook's services (users) aren't the people who are paying for them. Small companies who advertise on Facebook's collection of applications are the real clients. With the launch of Facebook Shops, the initial iteration of Facebook's e-commerce capabilities, the company's focus on small companies became much more obvious.

Notwithstanding its history and present problems, Facebook is doing incredibly well. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, sales increased by 22% to $86 billion in 2020. It had a profit margin of 38% and a net income of $29 billion.

Facebook - Growth

Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world, with 2.91 billion active monthly users as of the fourth quarter of 2021, which went up to become 2.93 bn in Q1 of FY22. Here's a look at the rise of Facebook's monthly active users.

The number of registered Facebook members topped 1 billion in the third quarter of 2012, making it the first social networking service to accomplish so. In the first quarter of 2021, the company said that 3.51 billion people used at least one of its key platforms on a monthly basis (Facebook, Whatsapp, Messenger, or Instagram).

Facebook initially began with only 150 people working with the same firm back in 2006. This rose and rose over the years, and was last registered with 71,970 full-time employees in December 2021.

What's Facebook Changing to Ramp up Growth?

Facebook and Instagram both will see some changes, and many of these changes will be inclined towards altering the process of how Facebook and Instagram users share posts and videos. On this, Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platforms will make it easier for the users to control what they "see and discover on Facebook." Here are some of the proposed changes that will take place:

Feeds will be introduced as a new tab. This will help the users see the most recent posts from their friends, groups, and Pages.

A Favourites list can be curated of the friends and Pages the users care about.

The first thing that the users will now see is Home.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is on a mission to change the way it shows its users' posts and videos in order to enable the users to watch content from accounts that they don't already follow. This will, thus, help the Meta flagship product, Facebook to better compete with viral video app TikTok.

Face Recognition Shutdown

Face recognition will be phased out of Facebook's social network, as announced by the company in November 2021. Its use will be limited across all products, and over a billion saved faces will be deleted, according to Meta, Facebook's newly formed parent company.

According to a blog post by Meta's VP of artificial intelligence, Jerome Pesenti, the action will destroy over a billion saved faces in the following weeks. The removal of such a large database signal that Meta would limit the use of facial recognition in its planned "metaverse" projects, which will involve actual people interacting in vast virtual settings, including game environments, at least initially.

"The many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole," wrote Pesenti. "There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use," he said. "Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate."

Facebook - Competitors

The top competitors of Facebook are technology giants like:

Google
YouTube
Twitter
Snapchat
Pinterest
LinkedIn
WeChat
Amazon
Microsoft
Apple

Facebook - Challenges Faced

The prominence and magnitude of Facebook have prompted condemnation from a variety of quarters. Internet privacy, its face recognition software, excessive data retention, DeepFace's addictive nature, and its function in the workplace, including access to employee accounts by employers, are all challenges.

Facebook has been chastised for its consumption of electricity, tax evasion, real-name user verification regulations, censorship, and participation in the US PRISM surveillance program.

Users of Facebook are said to have negative psychological impacts such as jealousy and tension, a lack of focus, and social media addiction. Facebook has been slammed for enabling users to post obscene or illegal content. Copyright and intellectual property infringement, hate speech, rape, terrorist incitement, fake news, crimes, murders and live-streaming violent situations are among the specifics.

Sri Lanka suspended both WhatsApp and Facebook in May 2019 as a temporary fix to restore peace following anti-Muslim violence, the worst in the country since the Easter Sunday attack the preceding year. Between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, Facebook removed 3 billion fake accounts, bringing the total number of monthly active users to 2.39 billion.

The company said in late July 2019 that the Federal Trade Commission was investigating it for antitrust breaches.

Facebook Layoffs

Facebook is looking to lay off employees and has already asked the process managers to identify the low-performing employees and move them to exit, as per reports dated July 15, 2022. The company has been reportedly struggling with macroeconomic pressures and incurred hits to its advertising business.

Facebook Parent Meta Faces Trademark Lawsuit

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook has been hit by a trademark lawsuit filed by Meta X LLC., a virtual reality-based company, in Manhattan federal court, as of the reports dated July 26, 2022. MetaX alleged that the Facebook owner (earlier Facebook, Inc.), which is now renamed Meta Platforms Inc., has stolen its name since its pivot to metaverse. MetaX also reported that Meta has infringed its federal "Meta" trademarks.

Facebook - Future Plans

Following the renaming of Facebook as 'Meta,' the firm will be "metaverse first," according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which means you won't need a Facebook account to access other Meta products in the future.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity as we begin this next chapter,” he said. “Facebook is an iconic social media brand, but it just doesn’t encompass everything that we do.”

It also suggests that the company would divide its activities into two segments: one for its future platform efforts (Reality Labs is going to be the tag for that segment) and another for its app family.

Whilst expanding their social networking applications will remain a priority, he believes that the company's identity will become less tied to a single product/ service over time.

In short, the metaverse will be an embodiment of the internet, according to Zuckerberg, who believes it will be the next integrated virtual media to emerge after video (which evolved from photos and texts).

Rather than staring at a screen, you'll be able to immerse yourself in these activities. That's most probably to be accomplished through instilling a strong sense of presence in a shared environment, which would be the metaverse's distinguishing characteristic. This will demand hardware from the firm, such as the Oculus Quest 2 or others.

The firm is thinking about offering incentives to developers and new users to join. To boost adoption, these alternatives include cutting costs, subsidizing gadgets, or selling them at a loss.

It's crucial to stress, though, that the metaverse of Zuckerberg's visions is far from complete. Currently, just the fundamental building pieces work, according to Zuckerberg. In the end, technological obstacles remain—compressing augmented reality technology and sophisticated computers into a pair of spectacles, for example, is a difficult task.

Although Zuckerberg vows to encourage security and privacy on this new "social technology" network in a founder's letter, it remains to be seen if he can persuade people to use it, particularly younger generations who have been abandoning Facebook. Many people question if a new interface would simply reintroduce the same old issues.