11 years of Facebook: What’s changed over the years

On February 4, 2004 (February 5 in the Philippines), Facebook was born. Here’s how it changed over the years.

By Jillian D'Onfro | Business Insider — Thu, Feb 5, 2015

Happy 11th birthday, Facebook!

If you’ve been a loyal Facebook user since the beginning, you might remember how drastically different the site used to look. If not, we’ve got you covered.

From a private social network for Harvard students to the mammoth site that it is today, Facebook has evolved its design and capabilities accordingly.

Who knows what the next major change will be, but you can bet that users will complain about it, just like they did about every other change in the site’s history. And then they decide they love it.

1. Remember when Facebook was called Thefacebook? It started at Harvard and slowly opened up to other colleges.

2. This is what a Facebook group page looked like in 2005.

3. For comparison, this is what a Facebook group page looks like today.

4. Back in 2005, before the News Feed launched, Facebook was essentially just a collection of disconnected profiles.

5. Check out Mark Zuckerberg’s profile in 2006.

6. Facebook launched the News Feed to display all your friends’ activity in a single timeline in 2006.

7. At the same time, Facebook introduced the Mini-Feed. But the entire concept of a News Feed resulted in some very public outrage. Some users even went so far to call one of Facebook’s product managers the devil.

8. In 2009, Facebook’s home page got a facelift. It started to creep onto Twitter’s territory with the addition of a real-time News Feed. That same year, Facebook also introduced its algorithm for determining the order in which status updates should be displayed.

9. In 2010, Facebook brought notifications to the top navigation bar following yet another redesign.

10. Facebook rolled out a new, more visual profile in 2010. It added a row of recently tagged images below your name and basic profile information.

11. Facebook launched the News Ticker in 2011 so users could keep up with their friends while browsing through other parts of Facebook.

12. The Facebook Timeline feels as though it’s been around since the beginning. But it launched in 2011 to act as a virtual timeline of your entire life.