7 fun facts you didn't know about Facebook

August 24, 2010

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By Stela Roman

According to a very interesting article wrote by Amy-Mae Elliott, there are a lot of things that we don't know, or maybe some of you still remember about the history of Facebook. Here are 7 facts you might not know about it!

1. Al Pacino’s face was on the original Facebook Homepage
Facebook’s front page used to feature a man’s face partly obscured behind a cloud of binary code. It was prior to a major homepage redesign back in 2007. According to David Kirkpatrick's book The Facebook Effect , it was a manipulated photo of Al Pacino created by a friend and classmate of Mark Zuckerberg.

2. One early Facebook function was a File Sharing Service
One of Facebook’s early add-ons was a friend-to-friend, file sharing service called Wirehog, developed alongside Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and three others.

3. Facebook’s hidden Easter Eggs
Early on, mysterious movie-related references could be found littering the site.
The references could be found in the footer of the old “Friends Page” in 2007.
In addition, Facebook once boasted a Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter) that changed the background of the site to display colorful circles and light flares.

4. The meaning of the term Poke has never been defined
While Facebook explains how “poking” works on its help center, there’s no explanation to be found for the origin of the phrase.“We thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose… So mess around with it, because you’re not getting an explanation from us.”

5. The average Facebook user has 130 friends
To put your friend count in perspective, the average user has 130. How many friends do you have?

6. There’s an App to see what’s on the Facebook Cafe Menu
Facebook staffers get three free meals a day (as well as free drinks and snackage) served up by the “Facebook Culinary Team” at Cafe X or Cafe 6.

7. Mark Zuckerberg calls himself a “Harvard Alumni”
He lists himself as a “Harvard Alumni” which simply isn’t true, as he dropped out to concentrate on getting Facebook up and running.