I’ve started writing the first chapter of my thesis (if you can believe it, because I can’t!). It’s basically all you ever wanted to know about Facebook’s history (especially with respect to its use in Toronto), features and business end. And I’m calling it “Opening Facebook” (har har).

Anyway, I was digging through my old emails to try and figure out when the University of Toronto network was added to Facebook (as far as I can tell, it was late November 2004, according to good old Archive.org), as well as when I first joined and found this:

From: “thefacebook.com” <confirm@thefacebook.com>
Date: 20 December 2004 9:40:32 AM
To: raynes.goldie@*******
Subject: elvedin t******* has listed you as a friend…

Elvedin T******* has requested to add you as a friend, but before we can
do that, you must confirm that you are in fact friends with Elvedin.

To confirm this request, go to:
http://utoronto.thefacebook.com/confirminvite.php

Thanks,
thefacebook team.

The funny thing is, I’ve never actually met the guy. In fact, in the beginning almost all my Facebook friends were people I only knew from other sites, like LiveJournal. Did that happen to anyone else? It’s almost like we all hadn’t worked out how we were “supposed” to use it yet, and we were still in that phase where we could be somewhat anonymous online, with identities that were unconnected and undetermined by our “real” lives.

Also funny that it used to be called thefacebook, especially since now they seem to have a strong aversion to the word. At SXSW this year all the devs at the developer garage talked about “Platform,” and all descriptions of features on the Facebook blog talk about “Feed” or “Mini-Feed.” Weird. And kinda cult like.

Extra bonus: does anyone remember what used to be written at the bottom of Facebook? It said “a Mark Zuckerberg production” and “I’ll find something to put here” but I also remember something about guns… Anyone?