Social Web: Facebook Passes 500 Million Users & An Idea of What 500 Million Means Using World Population Estimates
As expected, Facebook has announced they now have more than 500 million users.
In a new blog post, "500 Million Stories," Co-founder, CEO & President of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, makes it official.
That's a massive number of people so with the help of Wolfram|Alpha and a small amount of assistance from the CIA World Factbook here is APPROXIMATELY 500 million people. In other words and hypothetically, every person young or old is a Facebook user.
The ENTIRE Populations of:
Australia
+ Bermuda
+ Canada
+ Cayman Islands
+ Guatemala
+ New Zealand
+ Singapore
+ South Africa
+ United Kingdom
+ United States
==========
500 Million People.
Note: Wolfram|Alpha uses 2008 population estimates while the CIA World Factbook uses 2010 estimates. Since we're just trying to get a rough estimate the differences shouldn't make a major difference.
To celebrate, we've put together a collection of stories you've shared with us about the impact Facebook and your friends have had on your lives.
We're launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world.
The blog post (at the bottom) includes a video from Zuckerberg making the announcement.
"Zuck" says that, "half a billion is a nice number but the number is not what really matters here. What really matters are all of the stories we here from all of you about the impact the connections have had on your lives."
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