<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use . It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies . </Td> </Tr> <P> This is a timeline of Facebook . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Th> Year </Th> <Th> Month and date (if available) </Th> <Th> Event type </Th> <Th> Event </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2003 </Td> <Td> October 28 </Td> <Td> Prelude </Td> <Td> Mark Zuckerberg releases Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook . It is described as a Harvard University version of Hot or Not . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> January </Td> <Td> Creation </Td> <Td> Mark Zuckerberg begins with his fellow co-founders writing Facebook . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> February 4 </Td> <Td> Creation </Td> <Td> Zuckerberg launches Facebook as a Harvard - only social network . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> April 13 </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin form Thefacebook.com LLC, a partnership </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> June </Td> <Td> Funding </Td> <Td> Facebook receives its first investment from Peter Thiel for US $500,000 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> June </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook incorporates into a new company, and Sean Parker (early employee of Napster) becomes its president . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> August </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> To compete with growing campus - only service i2hub, Zuckerberg launches Wirehog . It is a precursor to Facebook Platform applications . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> September </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> ConnectU files a lawsuit against Zuckerberg and other Facebook founders . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> December 30 </Td> <Td> Userbase </Td> <Td> Facebook achieves its one millionth registered user . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> May 26 </Td> <Td> Funding </Td> <Td> Accel Partners invests $13 million into Facebook . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> July 19 </Td> <Td> Acquisition talks </Td> <Td> News Corp acquires MySpace, spurring rumors about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> August 23 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires Facebook.com domain for $200,000 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> September </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a high school version of the website . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> October </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches its photos feature with no restrictions on storage (but without the ability to tag friends). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 </Td> <Td> December </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook introduces the ability to tag friends in photos . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2006 </Td> <Td> March 28 </Td> <Td> Acquisition talks </Td> <Td> A potential acquisition of Facebook is reportedly under negotiations, for $750 million first, then later $2 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2006 </Td> <Td> August 22 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a blogging feature known as "Facebook Notes". </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2006 </Td> <Td> October </Td> <Td> Userbase </Td> <Td> Facebook expands to UK Universities </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2006 </Td> <Td> September 6 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook launches News Feed . The original news feed is an algorithmically generated and constantly refreshing summary of updates about the activities of one's friends . The concept is relatively new at the time, with Twitter having launched only a few months in advance . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2006 </Td> <Td> September </Td> <Td> Acquisition talks </Td> <Td> Facebook discusses with Yahoo! about the latter possibly acquiring the former, for $1 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2007 </Td> <Td> January 10 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches m.facebook.com and officially announces mobile support . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2007 </Td> <Td> May 24 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces Facebook Platform for developers to build applications on top of Facebook's social graph . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2007 </Td> <Td> October 24 </Td> <Td> Funding </Td> <Td> Microsoft announces that it will purchase a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion . However, Microsoft also gained ad exclusivity in this deal, so the $15 billion valuation figure is disputed . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2007 </Td> <Td> November 6 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Facebook Beacon with 44 partner sites at the time of launch . Beacon is part of Facebook's advertisement system that sends data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends . Certain activities on partner sites are published to a user's News Feed . On the same day, Facebook launched Facebook Pages . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2007 </Td> <Td> November 19 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook removes "is" from status updates, allowing users to adopt a more free - form version of status updates . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> May </Td> <Td> Team </Td> <Td> Adam D'Angelo, an early employee and chief technology officer, leaves Facebook . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> June </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook settles both lawsuits, ConnectU vs Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg et al. and intellectual property theft, Wayne Chang et al. over The Winklevoss Chang Group's Social Butterfly project . The settlement effectively had Facebook acquiring ConnectU for $20 million in cash and over $1.2 million in shares, valued at $45 million based on $15 billion company valuation . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> July 21 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a complete site redesign with options for tabbed redesign, and allows users to opt into it . By September 2008, it forces all users to opt - in . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> August </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Employees reportedly privately sell their shares to venture capital firms, at a company valuation of between $3.75 billion to $5 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> October </Td> <Td> Physical location </Td> <Td> Facebook sets up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2008 </Td> <Td> November </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Facebook Credits in order to help users purchase Facebook gifts . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 </Td> <Td> February 9 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook activates the Facebook like button . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 </Td> <Td> August </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires FriendFeed . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 </Td> <Td> September </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook claims that it has turned cash flow positive for the first time . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 </Td> <Td> September 10 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces a feature whereby people can @ - tag friends in their status updates and comments . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 </Td> <Td> September </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook shuts down Beacon . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> February </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires Malaysian contact - importing startup Octazen Solutions . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> April 2 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook announces the acquisition of photo - sharing service called Divvy - shot for an undisclosed amount . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> April 19 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook introduces Community Pages, which are Pages that are populated with articles from Wikipedia . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> June </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook employees sell shares of the company on SecondMarket at a company valuation of $11.5 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> June </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook introduces the option to Like individual comments . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> October 1 </Td> <Td> Popular culture </Td> <Td> The Social Network, a film about the beginnings of Facebook directed by David Fincher is released . The film is met with widespread critical acclaim as well as commercial success; however, Mark Zuckerberg says that the film is a largely inaccurate account of what happened . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> December </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a redesign that emphasizes the most important parts of someone's life, including one's biographic information, photos, education, work experience, and important relationships . It replaces the tabs at the top of each profile page with links on the left side of the page . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> January </Td> <Td> Funding </Td> <Td> $500 million is invested into Facebook for 1% of the company, placing its worth at $50 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> February </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook application and content aggregator Pixable estimates that Facebook will host 100 billion photos by summer 2011 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> June 28 </Td> <Td> Competition </Td> <Td> Google launches Google+, widely perceived as a competitor to Facebook . Commentators believe that Facebook's subsequent rapid release of new features and improvements may have in part been hastened due to competition from Google+ . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> July 6 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook partners with Skype to add video chat and updates its website interface . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> August 9, then October 19 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook Messenger is launched for Android and IOS . October 19, 2011 update makes the app available to Blackberry os . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> September, then November 30 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook increases the character limit for status update posts from 500 to 5,000 in September and to 63,206 on November 30 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> September 14 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook allows people to subscribe to non-friends and to set the extent to which they receive updates from their existing friends and people they are subscribing to . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> September 15 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook partners with Heroku for Facebook application development using the Facebook Platform . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> September 22 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches new UI Timeline in F8 Convention . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> October 6 </Td> <Td> Accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook for SIM, a client / server SIM application developed by international digital security company Gemalto that enables people to access Facebook using the SMS protocol on their mobile phones, without needing a data plan, is released in partnership with select carriers . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> October 10 </Td> <Td> Accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook launches iPad app . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2011 </Td> <Td> December 21 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook login page changes due to Facebook Timeline addition . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2012 </Td> <Td> January 10 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook starts showing advertisements (called Featured Posts) in the news feed . The advertisements are generally for pages that one's Facebook friends have engaged with . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2012 </Td> <Td> April </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2012 </Td> <Td> May 12 </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook IPO: Facebook goes public, negotiating a share price of $38 apiece, valuing the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2012 </Td> <Td> June 13 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Facebook Exchange (FBX), a real - time bidding ad system where advertisers can bid on users based on third - party websites visited by the users (as tracked by a cookie on the third - party website). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2012 </Td> <Td> October </Td> <Td> Userbase </Td> <Td> Facebook reaches 1 billion active users . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> January 15 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces and begins rolling out Facebook Graph Search . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> January 30, then April 9 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook rolls out detailed and fine - grained emoticons to express different actions and emotional states in one's status updates (experimental launch January 30, official launch with universal availability April 9). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> March 7 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces major planned changes to the News Feed . However, it is later revealed that Facebook abandoned these changes after getting negative feedback from users . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> March 8 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that they acquired the team from Storylane, but not the product itself . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> April 4, then April 12 </Td> <Td> Product (mobile - only) </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Facebook Home, a user interface layer for Android - compatible phones that provides a replacement home screen that makes it easier for users to browse and post . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> April 15 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a new timeline . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> April--July </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Stickers, initially only for its iOS apps in April, but later expanding to its web version in July . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> June 12, then June 27 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces support for hashtags, initially only for the web (June 12). Later (June 27), more functionality is added and hashtags are extended to the mobile site and apps . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> June 30 </Td> <Td> Political activism </Td> <Td> Zuckerberg joins 700 Facebook employees for the June 2013 Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Celebration march in San Francisco, U.S. The 2013 Pride celebration was especially significant, as it followed a Supreme Court of the United States ruling that deemed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> August 20 </Td> <Td> Userbase / accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Internet.org in collaboration with six cellphone companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, and Qualcomm). Internet.org aims to bring affordable Internet access to everybody by increasing affordability, increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> September 26 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook begins letting people edit their posts and comments after publishing . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> September 29 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it will begin rolling out Graph Search for posts and comments . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> November 13 </Td> <Td> Acquisition talks </Td> <Td> A number of news outlets reports that Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for $3 billion USD but was spurned . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2013 </Td> <Td> December 18 </Td> <Td> Financial / legal </Td> <Td> Facebook, Zuckerberg, & banks face IPO lawsuit . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> January 13 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires Branch Media, and it is announced that the team working on the startup will join Facebook to work on conversations products for Facebook that builds on similar ideas as Branch Media's products, while Branch Media's existing products will continue to operate separately . Facebook confirms that the acquisition is a talent acquisition . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> January 16 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Trending Topics for its web version in the US, UK, Canada, India, and Australia . This is based on feedback to a pilot version tested both on the web and mobile starting August 2013 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> January 30, then February 3 </Td> <Td> Product (mobile - only) </Td> <Td> On January 30, Facebook announces Facebook Paper, a separate iOS app that provides a newspaper - like or magazine - like experience for reading on the phone, scheduled for launch on February 3 . Facebook also announces Facebook Creative Labs, an intra-company effort to have separate teams working on separate mobile apps that specialize in different facets related to the Facebook experience, rather than trying to make changes to Facebook's main web version, mobile version, or its iOS and Android apps, and says that Facebook Paper is the first product of Facebook Creative Labs . Facebook Paper receives mixed reviews, and some commentators note its similarity with Flipboard . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> February 4 </Td> <Td> Milestone </Td> <Td> Facebook marks the ten - year anniversary of its launch (February 4, 2004), and Mark Zuckerberg writes a public post about why he is proud of Facebook so far . The Pew Research Center releases a report about increasing Facebook usage by adults to mark the occasion . Many other commentators write articles about Facebook to honor the occasion . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> February 4--7 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> On February 4, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, Facebook introduces its Look Back feature that creates an automated video for each person looking back on the person's life as recorded on Facebook . On February 7, Facebook adds the ability to edit the Look Back videos . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> February 13 </Td> <Td> Political activism </Td> <Td> Facebook opens up many new LGBTQ - friendly gender identity and pronoun options . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> February 19 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it is acquiring the Sequoia Capital - backed multi-platform mobile messaging app WhatsApp for $16 billion USD ($4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares) plus an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp's founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing...According to the announcement, WhatsApp will continue to operate independently, Facebook will continue developing Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum will join the Facebook Board of Directors . On February 24, in a keynote address to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zuckerberg says that the WhatsApp acquisition is part of the Internet.org vision . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> March 3 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Rumors are circulated that Facebook is buying drone maker Titan Aerospace for $60 million . It is believed that the acquisition will help bolster Facebook's vision with Internet.org . Later, on April 14, 2014, the Wall Street Journal reports that Google is acquiring Titan Aerospace . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> March 6 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it will begin rollout of a somewhat modified news feed . The changes are along the same lines as those announced in the planned revamp announced March 7, 2013 (that was halted), but are more minor and focused . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> March 17 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook's face recognition algorithm (DeepFace) reaches near - human accuracy in identifying faces . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> March 25 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it is acquiring Oculus VR, Inc., a leading virtual reality company . The amount is reported to be $2 billion in cash and stock . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> March 27 </Td> <Td> Accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook announces a Connectivity Lab as part of the Internet.org initiative, with the goal of bringing the Internet to everybody via drones, using acqhires from Ascenta . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> April 24 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces FB Newswire to help journalists find news on its website . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> April 30 </Td> <Td> Product, accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook launches anonymous login so that people can use apps without giving them their data . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> June 18 </Td> <Td> Product (mobile - only) </Td> <Td> Facebook releases Facebook Slingshot, an instant messaging software application for sharing photos and videos with friends, for Android and iOS devices . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> July 21 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches Save, a read - it - later feature that allows users to save links, places, and media pages for later perusal . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> September 15 onward </Td> <Td> Userbase / controversy </Td> <Td> Facebook cracks down on the Facebook profiles of drag queens in San Francisco, asking them to switch to using their real names, and shutting down the accounts of those who refuse to comply . There is considerable pushback, including a planned protest at Facebook headquarters, that is delayed for a meeting with Facebook, but Facebook refuses to budge on its policy . Many people, particularly those in or sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, sign up for competing social network Ello, that does not enforce a real names policy, promises to remain "ad - free and porn - friendly", and aims to have a zero - tolerance policy for hate speech . On October 1, Facebook announced a clarification to its real name policy and said that drag queens could continue operating their accounts . The company clarified that people should use their authentic real - world names but need not use their legal names . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> October 6 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook officially completes the acquisition of WhatsApp, and WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum agrees to match Mark Zuckerberg's $1 salary . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> October 23 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches pseudonymous app Rooms, where Facebook users can create and participate in forums on any topic and do not need to use their real names . The forthcoming launch of the pap had been reported on October 7 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> October 31 </Td> <Td> Accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook creates a custom Tor link, making it easier for people to access Facebook anonymously in locations where it is censored . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> November 7 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook makes it easy for people to unfollow friends and pages they've liked, both while viewing pages in the feed and while reviewing summaries of the most prolific contributors to their feed . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> December 8 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook rolls out keyword search for all posts, part of Facebook Graph Search, to all US English users on desktop and using iPhones . It is cited as a potential competitor to Yelp and other product recommendation engines and also as a potential way to surface old, embarrassing posts by people . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2014 </Td> <Td> December 11 </Td> <Td> Outreach </Td> <Td> Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds his second Q&A, open to the public, about Facebook, where he discusses the dislike button and Facebook's role in promoting viewpoint diversity, helping people share more, and facilitating social and political transparency . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> January 5 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup founded 18 months ago to create an API for building voice - activated interfaces . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> January 8 </Td> <Td> Acquisitions by Facebook </Td> <Td> Facebook acquires QuickFire Networks, a company that built a custom hardware and software platform for reducing video file sizes and upload times . The Wall Street Journal got the news on January 8, with confirmation later arriving on QuickFire's site . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> January 16 </Td> <Td> Open sourcing </Td> <Td> Facebook open sources the Torch library, containing some of its deep learning tools in machine learning, including new code that runs 23 times as fast for training convolutional neural networks as the fastest publicly available code until that time . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> January 20 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it will show fewer hoaxes in the news feed, and mark items it identifies as potential hoaxes so that readers can view them more critically . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> March 17 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook introduces a free friend - to - friend payment service within its Messenger app . This is touted by some tech journalists as potential competition for PayPal's Venmo service . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> March 25 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> At the first day of the 2015 F8 conference (a conference for Facebook to make announcements about major product and service changes), the company makes a bunch of announcements, with the unifying theme being that the company wants to be an integrated bunch of apps, each fulfilling a somewhat different role . Currently, the company's leading apps include its main app, Messenger, and externally built and acquired apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp . Specific announcements include making Facebook Messenger more of a platform, a new real - time comments system, embeddable videos, spherical video, Parse for the Internet of Things, updates to ad exchange LiveRail, and analytics for apps . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> March 26 </Td> <Td> Open sourcing </Td> <Td> Facebook releases its React native framework for building native apps as open source . This is announced on the second day of the F8 conference . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> March 31 </Td> <Td> Userbase, product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches a feature called Scrapbook that allows parents to give their kids an official presence on Facebook even when they are too young to have their own accounts on the network by tagging them in photos . A Scrapbook can be owned by two people who have indicated to Facebook that they are in a relationship . When the kids grow old enough and get their own accounts, they can take over ownership of the Scrapbook and change the privacy settings thereof . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> April 22 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches an Android app called Hello to instantly matches phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls to Facebook profiles to show information about the caller / callee, block calls from commonly blocked numbers, and search for businesses to call, with initial rollout in the United States, Brazil, and Nigeria . There is no corresponding iOS app, because iOS does not allow apps to interact with phone calls . Commentators compare Facebook Hello to the native Android dialer app and to TrueCaller, an app with crowdsourced data . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> April 28 (announcement), April 30 (closure) </Td> <Td> Product, platform </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it is shutting down its friends data API, forcing developers to migrate to the Graph API . The company is also allowing for more granular control of data that users may share with apps . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> May 12 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches "Instant Articles" for Publishers . Publishers who use Instant Articles can opt in to have some of their articles shown to mobile users inside Facebook's app itself, without users having to leave the app and visit the customer's website . Initial launch partners include BuzzFeed, the New York Times, National Geographic and six others . The article as displayed on Facebook mimics the article on the website in terms of layout, and Instant Articles allows for correct attribution and analytics with tools such as Google Analytics, Omniture, and Comscore, in addition to publishers benefiting from Facebook's own analytics . Publishers can choose to have only a subset of their content available as Instant Articles, and Facebook handles the porting of the article to the Instant Article format itself . BuzzFeed praised Facebook for complying with its requests for compatibility with analytics tracking, and said the process was very collaborative throughout . Load times are claimed to be ten times faster than the mobile web . Publishers can keep all the ad revenue if using their own ads, but Facebook gets a 30% cut if the ads are shown by Facebook . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> May 29 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook confirms official support for GIFs . Autoplay settings for GIFs would be the same as those for videos: users who have video autoplay set to on (the default setting) will have GIFs autoplay when they scroll to the GIF in their news feed . Others can play the GIF manually by clicking the GIF button on the feed item with the GIF . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> June--August </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook adds more features for pages to make it easier for businesses to use them . These include: allowing pages to display how quickly they respond to messages, allowing pages to send saved replies to messages, allowing pages to use private messages for customer support, and adding buy button integration to pages . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> June--July </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook makes changes to its news feed algorithm in a few different directions . It relinquishes some control to users allowing them to dictate what they see first in the news feed . Also, it announces that it will start using information on how long people hover on a particular item in their news feed to gauge their level of interest in the item, in addition to the more explicit signals it currently uses (likes, comments, shares). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> August </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> On August 5, Facebook launches live - streaming, initially restricted only to celebrities . Subsequently, on August 12, it announces that the feature will be made available to journalists and those with verified profiles . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> August 26 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook begins rolling out a human - and AI - powered virtual assistant called "M". M is available through Facebook's Messenger app, and is capable of performing tasks on behalf of users, including placing restaurant reservations and booking travel . At launch, M is only available to a small group of testers, and in April 2016 Facebook would confirm that it could be years before M is broadly available . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> August 27 </Td> <Td> Userbase </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it has hit the milestone of 1 billion users accessing it on a single day . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> October 27 </Td> <Td> Accessibility </Td> <Td> Facebook announces an initiative called 2G Tuesdays . With this initiative, Facebook engineers can opt in to access Facebook at 2G speeds for an hour every Tuesday (thus partly mimicking the experience of a nonnegligible fraction of Internet users in developing countries). The goal is to make Facebook engineers better understand the challenges of using Facebook with poor Internet speeds, and in turn help improve the Facebook experience for these users . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2015 </Td> <Td> December </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it will add a feature for booking a ride through its messaging application . Users of Facebook Messenger in the U.S. will be able to summon an Uber car with a few taps . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> January--March </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook Live that was originally launched in August 2015 and limited to celebrities, becomes available to all U.S. iPhone users on January 28 . On February 18, the global rollout begins . It becomes available to U.S. Android users in the week following February 26 . Starting March 1, Facebook starts pushing live content more compared to older content . Commentators describe Facebook Live as marking Facebook's entry into the live - streaming space, competing with Twitter - owned Periscope . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> February 24 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook releases Facebook Reactions to the general public . The feature allows people to use five additional reactions beyond just the "like" action to convey their reaction to a post . The new reactions are "love", "haha", "wow", "sad", and "anger" (another reaction, "yay", that was used in initial testing of the feature, has been removed). Although the names differ across languages, the emoticons used are the same across languages . Each user can add at most one reaction to a post . An early version of Reactions was released in October 2015 in Ireland and Spain . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> March 18 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook provide "Basketball Game" function in Messenger . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> April 12 and 13 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook F8 for 2016 includes a number of announcements about the product roadmap . Key highlights include: Messenger chatbots and a new bot engine, open source virtual reality camera, more tools for Facebook apps and Facebook Live, allowing businesses to send sponsored messages to people who have messaged them in the past, more changes around improving rights management for videos, and increased support for React Native from Microsoft and Samsung . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> April 21 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it is updating its news feed algorithm to take into account the time that a person spends reading the article, off Facebook (using various techniques to control for load time and article length). In the previous set of updates rolled out in June and July 2015, Facebook had started taking into account the time people spend viewing the item in their news feed, but the new change takes into account the user's activity outside Facebook . The change is part of Facebook's Feed Quality Program, and is a result of research showing that people's activity on Facebook failed to fully capture the extent to which they were interested in particular items . Commentators believe that this is likely to lead to a significant reduction in the circulation of misleading clickbait on the social network . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> April 27 and 28 </Td> <Td> Financial / legal, userbase </Td> <Td> Facebook releases its 2016 Q1 earnings report, showing an increase in earnings to 77 cents per share up from 42 cents per share a year ago . The earnings beat analyst expectations, and cause Facebook share prices to soar, leading its market cap to exceed that of Johnson & Johnson . Facebook also reports an increase of 57% in advertising revenue to $5.2 billion, with mobile advertising now accounting for 82% of advertising revenue . It also reports a year - over-year increase in daily active users by 16% to 1.09 billion and in monthly active users by 15% to 1.65 billion . Facebook also announces a proposal to create a new class of nonvoting stock . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> May </Td> <Td> Product, controversy </Td> <Td> Gizmodo publishes a series of articles about alleged problems with Facebook's Trending Topics section, including lack of integration of the Trending Topics team with Facebook's overall culture and workforce, discretion vested in that team to make decisions (including the ability to artificially inject content into Trending Topics even if it has not been trending so far), and potential for bias in the way the discretion is exercised, with a particular focus on bias against conservatism . The controversy is picked up by other news media, the United States Senate Committee, and many conservative outlets . Facebook defends itself against the allegations, but also invites leading conservatives, including United States Republican presidential primary frontrunner Donald Trump, libertarian - leaning conservative commentator Glenn Beck (who is very impressed with Facebook's actions), and CNN commentator S.E. Cupp, for a meeting to discuss and address concerns . On May 23, Facebook announces changes to its Trending Topics section, and releases a 28 - page document on the subject . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> May 25 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook announces that it is shutting down Facebook Exchange (FBX), its desktop ad exchange . The reasons cited include that FBX makes a very small share of Facebook's ad revenue, and that it is of limited utility because is purely desktop - based, and any successful ad campaign must include mobile, that people are increasingly using . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> June 15 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook introduces the secret Messenger soccer game, similar to the basketball game . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> June 29 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook publishes its list of "News Feed Values" that will guide its decisions and algorithms for the news feed . A core value listed is that friends and family come first, and Facebook announces that it is increasing the circulation of content about friends and family relative to publisher content . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> August 4 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces algorithm changes that penalize "clickbait" titles, based on a score assigned by a machine - learned model . The model is trained based on cases where users like a link, click it, and then immediately bounce and unlike pages . The algorithm is applied both at the web domain level and at the Facebook page level . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> August 11 </Td> <Td> Product (advertising) </Td> <Td> Facebook and AdBlock Plus enter into an escalating war . AdBlock Plus tries to block advertisements and sponsored content on Facebook's site, but Facebook releases a workaround, to which AdBlock Plus releases its own workaround . Facebook's argument is that ad blockers are a crude solution, and Facebook's approach of giving users more fine - grained control over the content they see in the feed is superior . AdBlock Plus disagrees with the assessment and says ad blockers should not be blamed for users' desire to have an ad - free experience . The ad blocking war continues into September and discussion continues into November, with Facebook reportedly having boosted its ad revenue owing to its blocking of ad blockers . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> October 3 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> In the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Facebook launches Marketplace, a way to buy and sell items through Facebook . Marketplace appears as a tab in the mobile app . The feature has been compared to Craigslist . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> November 30 </Td> <Td> Product </Td> <Td> Facebook launches in select countries Instant Games on Messenger and Facebook News Feed, which allows users to play games without installing new apps . The games are provided via HTML5 . At launch, Instant Games does not allow game developers to place ads or in - game payments in games, but Facebook commits to allowing eventual monetization . The platform initially has 17 games . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2016 </Td> <Td> December 15 </Td> <Td> Product (news feed) </Td> <Td> Facebook announces a set of news feed updates to combat the problem of fake news and hoaxes . These include more streamlining for users reporting fake news, a partnership with signatory organizations to Poynter's International Fact Checking Code of Principles to examine items reported as fake, learning from lower share rates for people who view the article that the item might be fake, and warnings to users when they share news that is disputed or possibly fake . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Th> Year </Th> <Th> Month and date (if available) </Th> <Th> Event type </Th> <Th> Event </Th> </Tr>

When did facebook come out in the uk
find me the text answering this question