Facebook is still thriving 20 years later. Here’s how

Twenty years after its launch, social media giant Facebook continues to show unprecedented staying power after burying early competitors like MySpace and Friendster and establishing a distinct foothold in the burgeoning social media landscape.

On February 4, 2004, a Harvard University undergrad named Mark Zuckerberg introduced TheFacebook.com, a social networking site for his fellow students. Twenty years after its launch, social media giant Facebook continues to show unprecedented staying power after burying early competitors like MySpace and Friendster and establishing a distinct foothold in the burgeoning social media landscape. Facebook has more than 2 billion active daily users and has maintained significant relevancy, often taking center stage in many of our cultural and political debates. Facebook set itself apart from other early social platforms with its initial exclusivity and its emphasis on gamifying social relationships through “likes,” comments, shares, and friend counts, helped along by a news feed updating users on the lives of their friends and acquaintances. “From a cultural standpoint, there has been a very clear trend towards the gamification of social relations,” said Pablo Boczkowski, a professor at the department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University who studies digital culture. “Facebook tapped into that and intensified that in society through its success. You can check what others in your peer group have and compare yourself to them, in a way you really can’t do in your personal life.” In 2004, Facebook was a Harvard-only site. Over the next few months and years, the site expanded, first permitting students from other colleges and universities to sign up, then high schoolers and professionals with corporate email addresses. By 2006, many of its original users had aged out of their initial demographics, prompting Facebook to cast a wider membership net. “We have two years of alums already, and more than one-third of the people using the site are not in college any more,” Zuckerberg told the New York Times in 2006, right before the site opened its doors to anyone over the age of 13. “If we make it so other young people can use the site, it strengthens the experience for everybody.”