--- title: "Which came first, Facebook or the World Wide Web?" description: "Facebook vs the World Wide Web: the World Wide Web came first, by 15 years — 1989 against 2004. What happened in each case." url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/facebook-vs-world-wide-web/ site: "At One Place" --- # Which came first, Facebook or the World Wide Web? **Which came first, Facebook or the World Wide Web?: the World Wide Web** 1989 — 15 years before Facebook the World Wide Web came first, by 15 years. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the proposal at CERN. ## Side by side | | Facebook | the World Wide Web | | --- | --- | --- | | Year | 2004 | 1989 | | Date | 2004-02-04 | — | | Category | technology | technology | | What happened | TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only. | Tim Berners-Lee wrote the proposal at CERN. | ## Facebook Facebook launched on 4 February 2004 restricted to Harvard email addresses, opened to other universities through 2004 and 2005, and to anyone over 13 with an email address in September 2006. It is six years younger than Google and a year older than YouTube. Its predecessor Facemash, which compared students' photographs, was shut down by the university within days in 2003. ## the World Wide Web Berners-Lee circulated his proposal in March 1989, built the first browser and server by the end of 1990, and CERN put the software into the public domain in 1993. The Web is twenty years younger than the internet: the internet is the network, the Web is one service running on it, and email and file transfer both predate the Web by decades. The first website went live in December 1990 and is still online. ## Common questions ### Which came first, Facebook or the World Wide Web? the World Wide Web, by 15 years — 1989 against 2004. ### When did Facebook start? 2004. TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only. ### When did the World Wide Web start? 1989. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the proposal at CERN. ## Related pages - [Microsoft or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/microsoft-vs-world-wide-web/) - [Apple or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-world-wide-web/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-world-wide-web/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Facebook?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-facebook/) - [email or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-world-wide-web/) - [email or Facebook?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-facebook/) - [the Macintosh or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-world-wide-web/) - [Windows or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-world-wide-web/) - [the World Wide Web or YouTube?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/world-wide-web-vs-youtube/) - [Python or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/python-vs-world-wide-web/) - [Java or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-world-wide-web/) - [JavaScript or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/javascript-vs-world-wide-web/) ## Sources - Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]