Half a billion, baby
Six-and-a-half years, numerous controversies and the impending release of a feature film later, social-network Facebook has managed to recruit 500 million users. The site has seen explosive growth over the last few years as it has rapidly expanded with new features and into new territories.
Via a post on the company blog, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the achievement, saying that it was "an important milestone" and thanking users for "making Facebook what it is today and for spreading it around the world".
He also took the opportunity to announce Facebook Stories. The initiative plans to let members share tales of how the site has brought them together or changed their lives in some way. These can be sorted by location or theme for all users to browse through and read.
While the site's rise to prominence has been fairly meteoric, its growth over the last few months has been nothing short of astounding. The company has gained 100 million users since February and has doubled its membership since this time last year. That points to fairly consistent growth of around 20 million users-per-month over the past year, which works out to about eight new users joining the site every second. To put the statistic another way, nearly seven and a half percent of the planet's approximately 6.7 billion inhabitants are now members of the social network.
This is quite the milestone, and we think Zuckerberg and Co. certainly deserve a pat on the back - or a ‘like' - for their achievement. Now how long will it be until they hit a billion?
