Facebook has been around for so long now - you might not even remember a time before it.
In fact, for some of you reading this you may not have ever existed in a world without Facebook as the website celebrates its 20th anniversary. It has been around so long that it has seen many changes over its two decade existence.
Features have come and gone - some causing more of a splash than others. You may need to jog your memory more than a little bit to remember some. Drop me an email with your favourite: [email protected].
1. Nearby Friends
Remember when Facebook would recommend potential friends based on your location. The Nearby Friends feature was scrapped in 2022 along with other location-based features. | KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
2. Facebook Virtual Gifts
Perhaps a little ahead of this time, this feature was available from 2008 to 2010 and it let you pay money to send virtual versions of gifts - pictures of a chocolate box for example. Which sounds an awful lot like the 2020s craze of NFTs and those Bored Ape pictures. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
3. Trending news
In 2018, it was announced that it was scrapping the ‘outdated’ trending news section. Launched four years earlier it attempted to steal a march on Twitter by showing a list of headlines at the side of the main news feed. But it was unpopular and eventually shut down. | JAM STA ROSA/AFP via Getty Images Photo: JAM STA ROSA/AFP via Getty Images
4. Honesty Box
Launching in 2007, Honesty Box was one of Facebook’s first attempts at other apps - it let you send messages anonymously. Can you remember using it, if you were in school at the time - and did it cause chaos? It was discontinued in 2011. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
5. Poke app
Has anyone ever actually figured out what the point of the Poke feature on Facebook is? Even in 2024 you can still do it, but it definitely feels like a relic of the 00s internet. But in 2012, Facebook launched a separate Poke app as an attempt to take on Snapchat - it shut down in 2014. | KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
6. The old Facebook layout
If you were an early adopter, you might remember when Facebook was called The Facebook and you may remember the old website. It has gone through many changes over the years, but there is something charmingly simple about the original webpage. | Juana Arias/The Washington Post via Getty Images Photo: Juana Arias/The Washington Post via Getty Images