Comments on: Facebook hits a quarter billion users

The social network isn't doing anything fancy to celebrate, other than working to develop odds and ends such as "new mobile products."

[stoctoni]

Well sure. Facebook keeps disabling peoples' accounts for no reason, forcing them to create new accounts. I seriously doubt their claims.

[ZetaZeta_]

If deactivated accounts don't count (which they shouldn't, whether they be disabled by Facebook or due to a user simply "quitting" Facebook, etc.) then this would be a fairly accurate number.

However I don't know what this number is... Accounts? Active Users? Number of accounts made?

[Mr. Dee]

Its kinda slow too, what makes Facebook so popular is its ironically anti-social. You log in every now and then to see whats going and then log off. Twitter is an example of real Social Networking is. Constantly staying in touch with your network. Facebook doesn't do that. Facebook is for people who need build an online life by having a huge of friends because their real lives are pathetic.

[ZetaZeta_]

Depends on how you use it. I see Facebook as more of a protocol. I add a friend like I'd add an screen name to an IM client, or add someone to my email address book. In fact, I talk to friends on Pidgin (and I can update my status), and I have all posts and messages sent to my email, and therefore Thunderbird. I'm subscribed to my friends' posted items in Google Reader. I usually post things to Facebook from the "post to Facebook" links on various web sites.

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.

[Randofu]

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

250 million active users.

[Mr.Whippy]

Well I myself have more than one profile (several actually) so I'm just wondering how many actual real people are on Facebook. Sure there might be 250 million accounts or profiles (over 20 of which are mine) so I doubt there are 250 million individual people on Facebook. Just search for Barack O Bama or Paris Hilton and see how many hits you get. Facebook should round up all the duplicates, all the fakes and all those who havn't logged in for 6 months. Delete those profiles then we can see a truer picture. But even if there were 250 million actual people, that's still only a quarter of 1 billion and there are 6 billion of us.

[twofangz]

Any numbers on how many bailed out? I am surprised that nothing is mentioned about how many people leave or just stop using Facebook. I personally know of at least 5 people who have stopped doing anything on the site. They still have accounts because they really didnt want to go through the extra effort of closing it. So does this count as 5 accounts ? HypeBook anyone ?

[Mr.Whippy]

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.