Best is yet to come, says Facebook's Zuckerberg (Update)
The decade-long adventure since the founding of Facebook has been an "amazing journey," but the best is still to come, Mark Zuckerberg said.
The founder and chief executive of the world's biggest social network celebrated Tuesday's milestone in a post on his own Facebook profile.
Facebook's shares also joined the party, rising 2.07 percent to an all-time closing high of $62.75, giving a company founded by college buddies a market value of more than $150 billion.
"Today is Facebook's 10th anniversary... and I'm so grateful to be a part of it," Zuckerberg wrote.
The 29-year-old executive said Facebook succeeded because "we just cared more about connecting the world than anyone else. And we still do today.
"That's why I'm even more excited about the next 10 years than the last," he added.
He said the first decade was "about bootstrapping this network. Now we have the resources to help people across the world solve even bigger and more important problems."
Zuckerberg said he is often asked if he knew Facebook would become what it is today and he responds, "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."
"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."
Zuckerberg said he sees a different role for Facebook in the future.
"Today, social networks are mostly about sharing moments. In the next decade, they'll also help you answer questions and solve complex problems," he wrote.
The company's own Facebook page carried a short message, saying "Turning 10, Thanks to You: Our 10th birthday only happened because of all your friendships, stories and memories along the way. Thank you."
The page also showed a video of a birthday party of 10-year-old children.
For each user, Facebook provided a "Look Back" video with highlights from items shared on the network.
Facebook, which has some 1.23 million users worldwide and has grown into one of the biggest technology firms, was planning a low-key celebration.
"Just as we do every year, we will have an internal party on Friday afternoon," Facebook spokeswoman Arielle Aryah told AFP in response to a query regarding the company's birthday celebration plans.
Facebook broke ground late last year on an expansion to its campus in former Sun Microsystems digs in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park. The new West Campus was designed by respected architect Frank Gehry.
A Pew Research Center survey released Monday suggests no slowing momentum, even though more than half of US users said they are turned off by over sharing and didn't like the fact that they showed up in pictures without giving permission.
According to the research firm eMarketer, Facebook has become the second-largest recipient of digital advertising spending behind Google, and is particularly strong in mobile ads.
Ben Harper at the research firm Socialbakers said Facebook got where it is because of its constant innovation.
"It's easy to forget that features such as timeline, graph search and business pages haven't always been there for us to use," Harper wrote in a blog post.
"For businesses, Facebook has become a platform for reaching and engaging with current and potential new customers," he said.
"For users, Facebook has changed the way we interact with friends, family and our favorite brands. We're sure Facebook has many more innovations and surprises coming in the near future."
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© 2014 AFP
