Look: The Evolution of Facebook, Now on its 12th Year

Prior Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg developed Coursematch, which allowed users to view people taking their degree, and Facemash, where you could rate people's attractiveness. Photo by hexjam.com.

Facebook is a phenomenon, no doubt! It is the world's biggest social network which was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm room. Today, Facebook is celebrating its 12th year on world wide web.

The design of Facebook has evolved a lot over the years. From a Harvard social network website to a global internet phenomenon, with the exception of one or two countries where it is proscribed, including China.

Facebook was originally known as TheFacebook.com. The name was taken from the sheets of paper given to freshmen, assessing students and staff. Within one day, more than one thousand Harvard students had signed up, and after a month, over half of the undergraduate population had an account.

Now, around one billion people per day visit this giant social network on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet.  

Here's what the homepage looked like over the years: 

The Facebook homepage from 2004. In the top left corner is a picture of Al Pacino.

In 2005, all schools signed up are listed — and still included the photo of Al Pacino.

Facebook homepage in 2006 with simple login option.

Facebook's 2007 homepage contained the first instance of its now-substitute logo and with the "latest news" from friends.

The Facebook of 2008 continued to develop the homepage and offered options for signing up.

Facebook homepage with the "connected world" diagram in 2009, which lasted all the way until 2011.

Facebook changed the connected world diagram for a phone in 2012 as its users swapped from desktop to mobile. 

Facebook's homepage design in 2013 lasted for 3 years until 2015.

 Here's the design of the Facebook's homepage today.

Sources: Business Insider and The Guardian

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