The history of Facebook goes way back, when most of us were still surfing on Orkut and Myspace. But it is still interesting to see how this social giant came into being.

Back in 2004, a Harvard dropout named Mark Zuckerberg created ‘The Facebook’, a relatively less known website at that time. Moreover, it wasn’t open for all- it was only open for students of Harvard. Later in 2005, the name changed from ‘The Facebook’ to simply ‘Facebook’. It took a bit of time before Facebook was opened for all (aged 13+).

That’s probably the time some of you would’ve come across Facebook. It was just a regular website offering a regular functionality in a rather attractive way. The design wasn’t that appealing, and the concept was also a common one, i.e. social networking. But there was some magical power, or charisma that made Facebook so popular among the masses.

Times changed, and Facebook developed even more. We started seeing what our friends are doing, who became friends with whom, who became a fan of what (‘become a fan’ was quite a phenomenon back then, until the ‘Like’ option took over). Facebook presented social networking in a pleasing way, unlike other social networks at that time which were confused and rather bamboozled on how to present something new to the users. Facebook’s elegant design and structure attracted millions of users in a very small time.

In 2008, Facebook hit its first milestone; 100 million users. Also, it carried out a major makeover almost every year, and 2008 was no different. But it was the 2008 redesign whose remains can still be observed in today’s Facebook.

Till 2010, Facebook had become a virtual life for everyone on the web. But just like the real life, there were some issues. Your private stuff couldn’t remain private anymore, unless you kept it controlled. Controlling what you share with the world became an important part of Facebook. But it was not long before people got used to it, and the privacy controls were rather appreciated.

Meanwhile, Facebook pages became a hub for businesses worldwide. If you don’t have an official website, link to an official Facebook page instead, that would suffice. Facebook became something more than just a social network. It became a starting point for new businesses, gave rise to startups, and even became a launch pad for artists.

But what would information be, without proper sharing. Administration of Facebook pages became a total phenomenon, attracting more and more ‘Likes’ to gain popularity, and this ascended to such an extent that companies started hiring social media analysts to find out the social media trends and interests of people over social networks.

And here we are, at the beginning of 2013. Facebook marked some great achievements in 2012 - including the acquisition of Instagram, the widely popular mobile-photo sharing social network. And with that, we saw some drastic design changes in Facebook (timeline) which were happily accepted by some people, while being criticized by many. Facebook has, and will probably be a topic of debate among us all.

Today, if you are an active Facebook user, share all your life’s happenings on Facebook, then the social network knows you better than majority of your friends. Facebook knows exactly who your friends are, your family members, where you graduated from, where you’re working, what your interests are, and so on.

We share all our personal and private details, our mind’s thoughts, almost everything on Facebook. Go back a couple of years and it would’ve sounded almost weird to share such a large amount of personal data over the web, even with a personal friend. And it’s not just you, it’s being done by almost a billion users worldwide.

Considering it started as a small project by a young college student is truly remarkable. It is remarkable to see the evolution of Facebook over the years.