7 things you didn't know about Facebook

Everyone knows Facebook - but you probably didn't know these 7 things via the social network. We have summarized the strangest and funniest facts for you in this article.

1. Hot or not - Facebook as a pioneer in Tinder

Facebook in its current form has existed since 2004. Before that, however, it was a slightly different social network:

• Mark Zuckerberg founded the website "facemash.com", the predecessor of Facebook, during his studies. Here he posted photos of female students on the Internet. Each visitor was then shown two randomly selected women from whom the user should choose the more attractive one.
• Since Zuckerberg posted the photos online without the permission of his fellow students, the "first Facebook version" was only public for a few days. In spring 2004 the psychology student therefore launched the website back as a social network.
• Success came quickly: By 2008, Facebook already had around 100 million active users and in the second quarter of 2015 a whopping 1.44 billion people who were regularly active for around 40 minutes a day. In the first quarter of 2018, the social network had a total of 2.2 billion users, of which 1.4 billion use the service every day.
• The global quota of women among active users is around 49 percent. Very strange: In December 2011, more people from Monaco than the total number of all residents of the country accessed their own Facebook page from there.

2. Red-green against blue - the colors of the Facebook logo

A blue square with the white letter "F" - the Facebook logo has hardly changed over the years. But why the color blue? The choice has nothing to do with chance:

• In an online test, Mark Zuckerberg found before the start-up that he had a red-green weakness. The developer once said in an interview.
• Since he can best recognize blue, he chose this as the main color for the social network.

3. Mark Zuckerberg: From starvation wages and private jets

It is now known that Mark Zuckerberg suffers from a red-green weakness. But there is also other curious information about the Facebook CEO:

• Zuckerberg does not fly on vacation with normal scheduled airplanes, but with specially chartered planes. The company Facebook pays for the costs of gasoline and catering. In 2012, that cost was a whopping $ 1.2 million. Security seems to be worth a lot to the Facebook boss.
• Zuckerberg is very modest about his earnings: since 2013 he has only received a salary of one dollar. Before that, it was around $ 500, 000 a year. However, the man is not poor: his shares in Facebook are worth a lot. In December 2013, he sold around 41 million shares for $ 2.3 billion. His total assets are currently estimated at $ 76.7 billion.

4. Rich, richer, Facebook - the network in the financial check

It was by no means clear from the start that the shares would shoot through the roof one day: When Facebook went public on May 18, 2012, the share price fell from $ 38 to around $ 33 in the first week. As a result, the company lost approximately $ 14 billion.

• Since then, the group has only been going uphill. At the end of 2014, Facebook was worth over $ 200 billion. Currently, the value is likely to be significantly higher, after all, the company made a proud $ 40.7 billion profit in 2017 alone.
• But that's not all: In the same year, Facebook bought the Messenger WhatsApp for around $ 19 billion. The value of the messenger service is said to be significantly higher.
• Since Facebook is free for users, the question quickly arises as to how the network actually makes so much money.

5. Funny Eastereggs: pirates on Facebook

Even the developers have been able to resist some jokes:

• For example, if you enter ": putnam:" as the comment, the face of Facebook engineer Chris Putnam appears. In addition, there are of course many other emoticons.
• If Facebook is too boring for you in German or English, you should also try the language "Pirate". You can activate this in the Facebook settings under "General"> "Language".
• The nudge function is not a hidden Easter egg, but it is still a strange function. You won't even find an explanation in Facebook Help. In an interview, Zuckerberg admitted that the feature had no deeper meaning. The developers only found it funny to incorporate a useless function.

6. What does Facebook know about me?

In addition to the many successes, there are also some downsides on Facebook. The internet giant is repeatedly criticized for its data protection. But what does Facebook really know about its users?

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• You can easily find out for yourself by requesting your saved data from Facebook. This works even if you are not registered. The social network still hoarded some information from friends or relatives.
• This Facebook subpage also tells you what data the network stores about you in total. If you are looking for more detailed information about the octopus, you can use a special Chrome extension.

7. Cool tricks on Facebook

In addition to the hidden Easter eggs, there is a lot more to discover on Facebook. With our tricks you can avoid, for example, Zuckerberg's red-green weakness and find out who viewed your profile:

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• With a little practice, you can change the Facebook theme or even create your own layout.
• Every day, countless users click on your personal Facebook page. In another article, we will tell you whether you can identify the page visitors.
• You can also find out how to tell whether you have been blocked on Facebook in one of our practical tips. We have also identified nine Facebook secret functions for you.

On the next page, we'll tell you 7 things about Google that you probably didn't know either.