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From TheFacebook.com to Facebook.com to FB.com
By Tatiana Bonneau access_time 1 min read

On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched a site under the name “TheFacebook”, originally located at TheFacebook.com. Recognizing the need for a shorter and better domain name the company dropped the ‘The’ from its name after purchasing the domain name Facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000. The name used to belong to  About Face, Corp. at the time.

And if you think that’s a lot to invest in a domain, think again. In 2010, Facebook bought the domain name FB.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation and paid for it $8.5 million dollars, which is 42 times more than the company originally paid for Facebook.com.

When asked in 2009 by a TechCrunch interviewer, what he might do differently today if he knew any better, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he “would get the right domain name”.

But Zuckerberg didn’t stop there. Similar to many entrepreneurs who discover the power of a good name, he has acquired many other top brand assets since – parse.com, internet.org, i.org, messenger.com – just to name a few.

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