Facebook hits a quarter billion users
Least surprising news of the day: Facebook has officially grown to 250 million active users across the world, according to a post on the company blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world," Zuckerberg wrote. (The post is accompanied by an animation of how Facebook's growth spread around the world, which is pretty cool.)
Facebook announced that it had reached 200 million members barely over three months ago. Then, Facebook commemorated the occasion with the launch of a new nonprofit-focused initiative, Facebook for Good. This time, they're not launching anything fancy, just assuring members that they're continuing to develop and innovate.
"Today as we celebrate our 250 millionth user, we are also continuing to develop Facebook to serve as many people in the world in the most effective way possible," Zuckerberg wrote. "This means reaching out to everyone across the world and making products that serve all of you, wherever you are--whether through Facebook Connect, new mobile products and the other things that we are building."
Interesting that he specifically mentioned mobile development. Facebook's growth explosion as of late has been largely overseas, and some would argue that the next frontier for the massive social network would be to make better inroads into countries where people are more likely to be accessing the Web on a mobile device than on a computer.
Facebook Connect, which lets external sites use Facebook login credentials and some profile data, has been one of the company's most high-profile projects since debuting about a year ago. It's also been a big success, with some reports that the company may build a powerful advertising network around it.
And "other things" likely entail the social network's virtual currency system, a potentially lucrative product that was finally announced after much speculation but has yet to make any kind of formal debut or rollout.
It took about four months for Facebook to go from 150 million to 200 million members, and slightly longer than that for it to grow from 100 million to 150 million.
Also making Facebook-related milestones this week: "The Accidental Billionaires," the factually questionable account of the social network's early days at Harvard, debuted in bookstores on Tuesday and had cracked Amazon's top-100 ranking by the end of the day.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
However I don't know what this number is... Accounts? Active Users? Number of accounts made?
I rarely touch the main page. Personally, I think Facebook (as a protocol) brings my entire Internet closer to my friends, family, and coworkers.
I think Facebook as a website is flawed. Browsing through photos, reading wall posts of friends, playing annoying online games... It's a huge time waster (in my oh so humble opinion).
Basically, Facebook is simply a tool, and I think using it with other tools makes social networking work, and work well. When you connect to all of your feeds and places and get real time updates in various clients, it brings all my other services together in one place to connect with friends.
I think the website itself is less social as you said. Log on, check some stuff, log off... Only connected with friends for a short time as long as your browser is open.
250 million active users.
- by Mr.Whippy July 22, 2009 1:40 AM PDT
- Oh and heres something to try for those of you who use Twitter. Type the words 'facebook' and 'deactivate' or 'deactivated' into Twitter search and see how many hits you get. I always get heaps no matter what time of day I search.
- Reply to this comment
-
(8 Comments)