The biggest name in social networking -- Facebook -- celebrates 10 years of existence on Tuesday, having grown from a private college site to a worldwide platform with 1.23 billion users.
The company has announced no public plans for a celebration, but the occasion has spurred many observers to reflect on the meteoric rise of the site and its influence on other social networking services such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Facebook's initial public offering ((IPO)) in 2012 had unexpectedly poor results, but the value of company shares has risen to record levels since then. The company is worth a reported $157 billion, more than many major U.S. companies with histories that are decades longer.
Experts say the major challenge of the social networking site is to age gracefully -- keeping the interest of its youngest users, who are moving on to newer technologies, while leaving their parents among Facebook's core set of users.
No matter what its future, Facebook has already made an indelible mark on the language of today -- introducing such terms as "friending," "unfriending," and "status line" into the modern-day vocabulary.