Facebook turns 12, celebrates birthday as ‘Friends Day’

On 'Friends Day', Facebook Creates Personalised Videos That Celebrate Your Friends

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday celebrated the social media giant's 12th anniversary as Friends Day. He talks about the things we learn with friends and that they give "meaning to our lives." To celebrate the occasion, Facebook has also introduced Friends Day Video, Sticker Packs, and more for its users.

Facebook is celebrating Friends Day today with a special video as it marks 12 years.

Facebook is giving friendship collages to its 1.6 billion users in celebration of the social network’s 12th birthday.

The collages will be packaged in video presentations of photos of friends and family that have been previously been posted on Facebook.

Zuckerberg on a Facebook post thanked the social network's users for becoming a part of the community. "Friendship isn't a distraction from the meaningful things in life. Friendship is what gives meaning to our lives. Our friendships make the world work. We laugh, we cry and we learn with friends. We eat, we shop and we work with friends. And when we fight for what we believe and change the world, we do that with friends too," he added.

The photos are picked out by automated technology, although each Facebook user will be able to delete some and select other pictures instead.

The social media website will be showing users personalised video montages on top of their News Feed. Users can also see their video montage by clicking Watch Yours below a friend's Friends Day Video.

The videos won’t be seen by anyone else unless a user decides to share the presentation.

Most Facebook users should start seeing the videos at the top of their Facebook feeds by noon Thursday, which the Menlo Park, California, company is hailing as “Friends Day.” It coincides with the 12th anniversary of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg starting the social network in his Harvard University dorm room.

Facebook says that these ‘Friends Day’ videos stitch together special moments with your friends in a short film that can be edited and shared.

If you have enough content, you will see the Friends Day video on top of the News Feed. People can also see their Friends Day video by clicking “Watch Yours” below a friend’s Friends Day video.

You can also see an option to edit the video, before you decide to share. Once you choose edit, you can pick and choose the pictures you want in the Friends Day video.

The video highlights different moments that can include profile pictures of the users, of their friends or images featuring both. The video can include as many as 16 images, which are the ones that users have already shared publicly on Facebook. In addition, the company gives users the ability to edit their video content before sharing it on their timeline.

Furthermore, choosing the audience who can view the video is also possible. "People will only be able to see your video if they're included in the audience you share it with and are included in the audience for every photo in your video." People can also see their Friends Day video by clicking "Watch Yours" below a friend's Friends Day video.

Facebook has also released two sticker packs called "Best Friends" and "Friendship" for Facebook Messenger application. The packs are available to download from the Sticker Store.

The company says that over the past five years the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size. Facebook adds that during that same time period, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has continued to decrease to 3.57 degrees, down from 3.74 degrees in 2011.