10 things you don't know about Facebook

For a site like Facebook, which has become sort of a synonym for the Internet itself, it’s hard to say there are things we still don’t know about it. Everything’s already been said, everything’s been discovered and the site is as transparent as it gets.

But there are still things we (or at least some of us) still don’t know about it, and those include some awesome, but long lost and forgotten options the site has to offer, like:

1. Facebook Used to Be College Only

You may have known that Facebook was built by then-college student Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room, but what you may have not known is that he built it to connect with his college friends first, then it was expanded to other colleges before becoming available to all.

2. Get Paid to Find Bugs

The company takes security very seriously, but even with thousands of employees and some of the best software engineers working there, there is always a possibility of a breach. That’s why Facebook offers anyone (and everyone) a solid reward for finding a bug in their system.

3. The Pirate Option

Newer users might not know this, and older may have never seen the feature in action, but you could switch Facebook’s language to Pirate. Yes, the site has numerous language options, including English (Pirate), in which a simple Yes would be transformed into Aye, if memory serves me well. Arrrr.

4. The Facebook Guy Is Actually Al Pacino

Remember The Facebook Guy? The original image of anyone freshly registered to the network was an image of a male, slightly hidden behind a wall of binary code. While everyone thought it was Mark Zuckerberg on the photo, it was actually Al Pacino in his early days.

5. Zuck’s Page Shortcut

A couple of years ago, Facebook enabled its pages to get custom shortcuts, so instead of having to type in www.facebook.com/pages/01234549134 or whatever, you could have named your page something more meaningful. The company’s founder Mark Zuckerberg also gave his page a custom link (of course), which is facebook.com/zuck. However, you can also access it via facebook.com/4, and no one knows why the number 4 was used -- and not 1 -- or any other number for that matter.

6. Teens Ran Away…

With Facebook being increasingly used by older people (in older I mean those with kids), teens started moving from the network to other ones, not used by their parents and grandparents, in an attempt to avoid embarrassing comments by family members on their half-naked bathroom selfies.

The results of a survey conducted by Piper Jaffray that were released in April of 2015 stated that only 14 percent of teenagers polled claimed that Facebook was the "most important" social network. That number was 33 percent in 2013.

7. ...But Teens Are Still Here

However, although it might not be the most important network for them, 71 percent of teens still use it, according to a 2015 Pew survey.

8. MySpace Could Have Bought Facebook

Remember MySpace? Of course you don’t, it’s as old as the Old Testament, but that used to be the social network before Facebook was cool. Back in the day, Zuckerberg offered TheFacebook to MySpace for a measly $75 million (£47 million), but its CEO Chris DeWolfe turned the offer down.

9) There’s a Facebook Graveyard

People die every day, and with more than a billion of us using Facebook, its users also die every day. But what happens to a Facebook profile after you’ve gone? The company offers two choices: one is to turn the site into a page, a memorial of sorts, where people can leave wall posts and post pictures. The other choice is to delete the profile completely, but in order to do so, Facebook will need proof the person is actually dead.

10) Like Was Almost Awesome

One of the biggest features Facebook has today is the Like button. When the company first thought about implementing a feature where people could acknowledge someone’s post without actually leaving a comment, they thought about the word Awesome. Zuckerberg didn’t like idea. See what I did there?

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Photo credit: JuliusKielaitis / Shutterstock