Facebook celebrates its 12th birthday today, February 4. This day is known as Friends Day and the company is planning on sharing some great, new stuff to celebrate friendship. When people connect, powerful things can happen and lives can be changed.
“We see this every day on Facebook. Whether it’s an exchange with an old friend that brings a smile to your face or a new connection that changes your life path, or even the world,” says a statement from Facebook.
For Friends Day, Facebook is releasing data, stories, and products that we’ll release a Newsroom Post that will go live today at 1:00 PM. .
Earlier this week, Facebook hosted an intimate Friends Day event at our Menlo Park headquarters where 18 members of the Facebook community with incredible stories were invited to come to campus. They came from Saudi Arabia, Louisiana, Hungary, Oklahoma and elsewhere to share their stories of connecting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and others.
“And that’s really what we care about, so we figured that rather than having this birthday that focuses on us, we should make sure that the world focus on what’s important that’s actually happening, which are only stories of how people are connecting around the world and it’s just amazing and it’s inspiring to hear,” said Zuckerberg.
“That’s what the best movements do. You find ways to keep it focused on the needs of the community, and it’s not about you. And that’s the whole point of Friends Day. We felt like the world was making it too much about us and it’s not about us.”
Sandberg comments: “One of the things that I really come out of my last year understanding is I am going to celebrate every birthday.”
“I want to say thank you to all of you for the inspiration because this is why we exist and there is nothing we would rather do than celebrate our birthday with you.”
Over the past five years, the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size. During that time period, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has continued to decrease to 3.57 degrees, down from about 3.74 degrees in 2011.
“This is a significant reflection of how closely connected we’ve become even as we’ve continued to grow,” says the company.
Personalized video product
Facebook has also started rolling out a personalized video experience to millions of people globally. These videos highlight friendships and memories in an editable and sharable video. Most people in the world will receive their video by mid-day on Friends Day (Thursday, February 4.)
The company also launched special Friends Day sticker packs that can be downloaded here: facebook.com/stickers.
