Facebook celebrates its five year anniversary today.

Popular social networking site Facebook celebrates its fifth birthday today (4 February) by giving users each a free virtual gift.

Facebook is an internet phenomenon, founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and currently boasts over 150 million users. Facebook has overtaken MySpace, which has around 130 million users, as the world’s favourite internet social networking website in recent years.

In his blog, Zuckerberg thanked Facebook users: “While we at Facebook make products that enable people to share information efficiently, Facebook is mostly the product of the people who use it.

“Without you and the connections you make to others, the products we create wouldn’t have much meaning.”

The blog also shares images from the website that show the development of Facebook from its humble beginnings in a Harvard dorm room to the multinational and multilingual social network it is today.

As a thank you to users, Facebook is offering each user a virtual gift free of charge, which are available from the Facebook Gift Shop.

Zuckerberg also commented on the state of Facebook and the internet today: “The culture of the Internet has […] changed pretty dramatically over the past five years.

“Before, most people wouldn’t consider sharing their real identities online. But Facebook has offered a safe and trusted environment for people to interact online, which has made millions of people comfortable expressing more about themselves.”

Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.