Never imagined Facebook would become what it is today: Mark Zuckerberg on ...

Social networking site Facebook turns 10 years old today. On February 4, 2004 Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room made live a website that has now single-handedly managed to change the face of communication and socialising forever.

In just 10 years Facebook has posted revenues of $7.87 billion, of which $1.5 billion were pure profits, and to that must be added the more than $11 billion in cash that the company has on hand.

Facebook has made Zuckerberg, who in May will turn 30, one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

On the occasion, Mark Zuckerberg looks back fondly to where it all started. " People often ask if I always knew that Facebook would become what it is today. No way. I remember getting pizza with my friends one night in college shortly after opening Facebook. I told them I was excited to help connect our school community, but one day someone needed to connect the whole world," he said in a wall post on Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg's personal goal was to give people the power to share and stay connected, empowering people to build their own communities themselves.

" When I reflect on the last 10 years, one question I ask myself is: why were we the ones to build this? We were just students. We had way fewer resources than big companies. If they had focused on this problem, they could have done it. The only answer I can think of is: we just cared more," he said.

Mark Zuckerberg feels happy and content about his first ten years but is even more excited about the next ten years. " The first ten years were about bootstrapping this network. Now we have the resources to help people across the world solve even bigger and more important problems. Today, social networks are mostly about sharing moments. In the next decade, they'll also help you answer questions and solve complex problems. Today, we have only a few ways to share our experiences. In the next decade, technology will enable us to create many more ways to capture and communicate new kinds of experiences," he divulged in his post.

Zuckerberg said the company wants to make progress on providing Internet access to the two-thirds of people on the planet who are not connected. Facebook's 10-year plan appears to be as follows:

1. Deliver highly personalised, targeted ads in news feeds that greatly increase average revenue per user, and profit margins.
2. Establish standalone apps as major spokes that deliver unique experiences and plug into the massive Facebook data hub.
3. Surpass traditional search with Search Graph that enables a variety of artificially intelligent services.
4. Bring the Internet, and increasingly cheaper and more functional devices and data centers.

At the end of his address to his users in the post, Zuckerberg gets emotional and thanks them for letting him experience this journey. "It's been amazing to see how all of you have used our tools to build a real community. You've shared the happy moments and the painful ones. You've started new families, and kept spread out families connected. You've created new services and built small businesses. You've helped each other in so many ways. I'm so grateful to be able to help build these tools for you. I feel a deep responsibility to make the most of my time here and serve you the best I can," he concluded.

Even though Facebook has just reached its tenth anniversary, recent reports suggest that the online network, which has hit it big as a business by broadening its social base, seems to be maxing out in terms of numbers of users.

Between January 2011 and January 2014, for example, Facebook lost more than 3 million users between the ages of 13 and 17. The same thing occurred in the 18-24 age group, iStrategyLabs said in a recent report.

The future of Facebook irrevocably lies in Zuckerberg and his team's hand. Here's wishing Facebook a very Happy 10th Birthday and celebrating to more innovation, communication, connection and 'Facebooking'.

via Technology - Google News http://ift.tt/1k7fsWP