The history of Facebook traces its growth from a college networking site to a global social networking service. It was launched as TheFacebook in 2004, and renamed Facebook in 2005.
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes at Harvard University, it was initially limited to Harvard students. It expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada, corporations, and by 2006 to everyone with a valid email address along with an age requirement of being 13 or older. Facebook introduced key features like the News Feed in 2006, which became central to user engagement.