Facebook on Wednesday announced a remarkable milestone: 500 million active monthly users. And the velocity of its growth raises a mind-boggling possibility: Could Facebook reach 1 billion “friends” next year? That would be roughly 1 out of every 7 human beings on the planet.
If Facebook gallops ahead at its current pace, the 1 billion mark would indeed be reached in 2011. The online social network Mark Zuckerberg and a few Harvard classmates founded in 2004 went from zero to 250 million users in five years — and doubled that number over the past 12 months despite controversy regarding its privacy protocols.
Zuckerberg, 26, has said the 1 billion milestone is “almost a guarantee” — not a matter of if, but when.
Facebook, perceived by some Internet moguls as a fad just a few years ago, is still a private company but an industry colossus and a highly anticipated the candidate for an initial public stock offering. The free service lets individuals share news, photos, videos and comments with personal networks of “friends,” and makes money primarily through advertisements targeted to users based on information gleaned from their online profiles.
The company’s continuing global rise, some say, could result in a New Web Order. The collective strength of its social networking features — dubbed “the social graph” by the company — is challenging Google’s search engine as the driving force of the Internet industry,
corralling more time from users and dollars from advertisers.
“As of this morning, 500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them,” Zuckerberg declared on Facebook’s blog Wednesday. “Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about.”
The Palo Alto company marked the occasion by inviting users to share tales about how Facebook has affected their lives in a new feature called Facebook Stories.
Facebook defines its 500 million users as individuals who have been active on Facebook within the past 30 days.
The next 500 million represents a different challenge.
India, Russia and Brazil have large populations but relatively low Facebook penetration. China, the world’s most populous country, blocks Facebook, as do several other sizable markets, such as Vietnam and Pakistan. People in those countries may access Facebook through workarounds, such as virtual private networks, but potential for growth is stunted.
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