Mark Zuckerberg/GettyImages
In its early years, Facebook enjoyed rapid growth and soon became the largest social network in the world (both then and now), but almost as soon as its coffers were filled with cash (and even a little before), the company began to acquire just about everything that moves in the field of social media - and quite a few things outside the field The epitome of social media such as WhatsApp and Oculus, and several other companies that deal in completely different areas such as customer service...
Facebook acquired dozens of companies and startups (its hundredth acquisition was in 2022), some of them direct competitors, and some that developed products that seemed to Zuckerberg to be complementary to the large social network.
In 2010 he said that "we often buy a company for the sake of the company. We buy companies to get great people...to preserve the entrepreneurial culture, one of the important things is to make sure we recruit the best people. One of the best ways to do that , is to focus on the acquisition of excellent companies with good founders."
Facebook acquired dozens of companies and the startups (its hundredth acquisition was in 2022)
Facebook/Shutterstock
Although Facebook users could almost from the beginning upload and share their photos, this was not the focus of Facebook, which focused mainly on textual or integrated feeds and the "wall" of the users.
Photos and video have never been Facebook's strong suit, and it hasn't been a visually-focused network.
Instagram, on the other hand, does.
The network, which quickly became popular with designers and trendsetters in the fields of fashion, cooking, lifestyle and what not, was founded in 2010 as part of a "second wave" of social networks with dedicated features.
Alongside Facebook and Twitter, which already dominated textual updates, and YouTube, founded in 2006, was the undisputed queen of video sharing, younger social networks began to emerge that were more visual and spoke to the younger generation, including Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest.
More in Walla!
Virtual reality therapy: a treatment for coping with anxiety
in collaboration with zap doctors
Founded in 2010 as part of the "second wave" of social networks with dedicated features/ShutterStock
Facebook buys Instagram outright in 2012, a purchase that would later better position it to compete with the likes of Snapchat, Clubhouse (remember when it was trendy?) and later - Tik Tok.
Facebook paid a billion dollars for the relatively young social network, and although it was absorbed into the giant Meta, Instagram maintains its independence as a separate platform, which, in fact, is hardly identified with Facebook-Meta, although it is fully owned by it.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Inon Ben Shushan (@inon_ben_shushan)
WhatsApp started on a paper napkin.
Seriously - what became the instant messaging tool of the whole world and his wife (and family, and aunt and grandmother), started as a code written by the founder of WhatsApp, Jan Kom, on a paper napkin, and from there - history.
WhatsApp's greatness was the fact that it was available on all major platforms, or in its interoperability language.
While Facebook had Messenger, Google had Google Chat and Apple had iMessage, each of these messaging apps didn't talk to each other, and you could only send messages to someone who also had the app.
WhatsApp broke these closed gardens, by making it available to everyone: on the iPhone, on Android and at a later stage on the computer for several operating systems.
In terms of the speed of success and the fact that it reached almost everywhere and every smartphone, it is reminiscent of ICQ, the first instant messaging software, in its spread.
This success did not go unnoticed by Facebook, which purchased WhatsApp in 2014, for $19 billion - Facebook's largest acquisition until that year.
What winked at Facebook at the time was WhatsApp's huge user base relative to its young age - 200 million users.
WhatsApp broke these closed gardens by making it available to everyone: on iPhone, Android and later on PC/ShutterStock
Oculus
Of all Facebook's big purchases, the purchase of Oculus is perhaps the most interesting, because it is not a software product - but hardware, and not just any hardware, a virtual reality helmet.
For Zuckerberg, the investment in Oculus was an investment in the future of Facebook, and what would later become Meta and the vision of the Metaverse, which, in the meantime, is rather faltering.
Oculus was founded by Palmer Lucky, which actually started as a Kickstarter project.
Lackey, a designer and researcher at the University of Southern California, and known to have the largest collection of head-mounted display (HMD) helmets, was not satisfied with the existing one.
He wanted to create a VR helmet that was stronger and less cumbersome than what existed at the time.
He ran into John Carmack, the legendary developer of Doom, who got excited, and brought Lucky's prototype to the big E3 gaming show and started showing it to people.
The crowdfunding project for the development of the helmet passed the fundraising goal in four hours, and reached one million dollars in 36 hours...
Oculus was founded by Palmer Lucky, which actually started as a Kickstarter project.
The third generation of Oculus (Archive)/Reuters
Oculus was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for two billion dollars and later became Reality Labs, the research and development arm of the social network for the field of virtual and mixed reality.
The helmet also went on the market, under the name Quest.
Years later, Zuckerberg would present a vision of a virtual reality-based world called Metaverse, based on the hardware originally developed by Lucky.
The Israeli point
Facebook's Israeli point is actually several points, since Facebook has acquired over the years no less than five (!) Israeli companies, which will later become the company's development center here in Tel Aviv on Rothschild Boulevard.
Facebook's first purchase here in Israel was in 2011, when Facebook purchased Snaptu, a technology company that made it possible to run virtually any network content on any smartphone.
Although the product was also compatible with a number of other services such as Twitter, Flickr and more.
Facebook, which was looking for something that would allow it to be on every smartphone almost at once (the initial application they developed together already worked on 80 percent of the smartphones in the world), rushed to purchase it, for about 70 million dollars (according to reports at the time).
The acquisition of the next Israeli company was Face.com, purchased in 2012, for 100 million dollars and its specialization was facial recognition in photos, a technology that would later become controversial.
The ability to tag people in photos on Facebook automatically or suggested, relied on the Israeli technology that was absorbed into the giant.
Over the years, Facebook has acquired no less than five (!) Israeli companies/Reuters
In 2015, Facebook buys Pebbles HaKfar Sabait, for 60 million dollars.
The company's specialization is in creating natural interfaces of body gestures, which, of course, is integrated into the Oculus helmet of the company that Facebook purchased a year earlier.
In 2018, Facebook acquires Redkix of the Entabi brothers, for 100 million dollars.
The company developed software for sending messages within organizations, and Facebook wanted it to better fight the leader in the field - Slack.
And Facebook's last purchase in Israel was in 2019.
The 79th acquisition for Facebook was of Servicefriend, for a project that generally focuses on...customer service.
When we said in the title that Zuki buys everything - we meant it.
More on the same topic:
Mark Zuckerberg