The Rise of Facebook.com – The official TimeLine

February 2004

Mark Zuckerberg, along with Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin, launch thefacebook.com from their Harvard dormitories.

The Rise of Facebook

March 2004

Students are pictured on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Conn. In the spring of 2004, the company expands to Yale, Stanford and Columbia.

Yale University

December 2004

Facebook reaches its first significant milestone: 1 million active users.

1 Million Active Users on Facebook

May 2005

The company secures $12.7 in funding from venture capital firm Accel Partners and expands to more than 800 colleges.

Facebook Funding

April 2006

The Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. is shown in January 2011. In 2006, Facebook adds more high-profile venture-capital backers: Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, and others, raising a total of $27.5 million.

Facebook Secures more funding

January-March 2008

Facebook launches in Spanish, French and German.

April 2008

Facebook eclipses its former rival MySpace.

May 2009

Digital Sky Technologies makes a $200 million investment for preferred stock at a valuation of $10 billion.

December 2009

The popular networking site introduces new privacy settings that the company claims are supposed to give its 350 million users more control over what information they share. Consumer groups and users have a different view. They respond with a torrent of complaints that the new tools were confusing and that in some cases made user information more broadly available to other Web sites and anyone searching the Internet.

April 2010

The firestorm over Facebook and its privacy settings grows as the company introduces “instant personalization,” which shares user information — such as an individual’s preferences and those of their friends — with other Web sites. Privacy groups file complaints with regulators, and thousands of users join sites pledging to quit Facebook. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticizes Facebook for sharing information to third-party sites and calls for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

May 2010

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces new one-click options to help subscribers protect their privacy and apologizes for the company’s recent privacy stumbles. “We don’t pretend that we are perfect,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with The Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang. “We try to build new things, hear feedback and respond with changes to that feedback all the time.”

July 2010

A photo pre-approval feature is shown. Facebook will now let you pre-approve photos before your friends can post them with your name attached.

October 2010

A movie called “The Social Network” is released in theaters. Actor Jesse Eisenberg, left, plays Zuckerberg in the film, which captures how Facebook was started.

December 2010

Zuckerberg is featured on the cover of Time magazine’s 2010 “Person of the Year” issue. At 26, Zuckerberg is the youngest to earn the honor since the first person chosen, aviator Charles Lindbergh, in 1927. Lindbergh was 25.

April 2011

President Obama shared the stage with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s headquarters. Obama outlined how his plan to reduce the deficit through spending cuts and raising taxes on the rich would be done without sacrificing what he described as key social safety nets.

April 2011

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules that twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss lost in their bid to void a 2008 agreement for Facebook to pay the twins $65 million after claiming Mark Zuckerberg stole thier idea, according to reports. The Winklevosses had claimed that the scoial media company gave an inaccurate valuation of its shares before agreeing to pay the settlement.

July 2011

Facebook reaches 750 million active users and is speculated to be preparing to go public as soon as in the first quarter of 2012. News reports have pegged its potential valuation at more than $100 billion.

Facebook Rise to the Top