#StartupNews Facebook: the way from a student website to met | Idea factory
#StartupNews
Facebook: the way from a student website to metaverse
Facebook is a well-known social net. Though it was criticized for not meeting the intellectual property right, the company keeps growing and achieving new goals. In 2008, the number of visitors reached 90 million which made it the most popular world social media. Today Facebook is not just a social network it’s used to be. From now on this is Meta which is going to be a real metaverse.
How it was created
Initially, Facebook was meant to be a website for communication among Harvard students. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg designed a portal at university dormitory. Thanks to his invention, Mark became the youngest billionaire when he was 23.
The key Facebook difference from other social nets was the possibility to contact. Zukerberg offered a simple and convenient way to share information about each other.
Until 2005, the website was used only by students. In June 2006, Facebook became available for professional communities, and in September everyone could register. Later, the platform started to attract external developers and as a result had 400,000 programmers. Facebook enabled web-designers to create software for affiliated websites and mobile phones.
What boosted Facebook’s popularity is a flow of independent programmers who worked on the website. However, the swift growth resulted in frequent violations of users’ security. Many users considered the option of viewing all the updates of your friends privacy violating. There was even a community ‘Students against Facebook’ which involved 700,000 people. Eventually, programmers had to make the option as secure as possible.
Investments
Investors actively put their money in the company. Peter Thiel — the ex-head of PayPal — invested $500,000 in the website. Facebook signed a $25 million contract with Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital. They spent the received money on the expansion: now the company has more than 200 employees and an office in Silicone Valley.
How Facebook became Meta
Recently Mark Zuckerberg has announced Facebook’s rebranding. Meta is a new name that reflects the aim of creating a VR universe. Zuckerberg is intended to build a metaverse — a 3D space to connect and play.
However, the names of its apps — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp will remain the same. Mark hopes that in the future his company will be viewed as a metaverse-company. Therefore he is linking the corporation’s identity with this aim.
Besides social networks, Mark Zuckerberg owns Oculus — a vendor of VR devices. In September, Facebook allocated $50 million for creating a metaverse. For the time being, the company has already been testing a VR app for distant working. This will allow users to attend conferences with the help of a special headset.
Mark Zuckerberg is aimed at enabling users to experience other people’s presence. It’s supposed to feel like you are physically next to someone. Once it’s achieved, the world of social technologies will never be the same.
What do you think about Meta? Share in the chat
