On Wednesday, Facebook reached its 500 millionth member. Because of privacy constraints, we won’t know exactly who that is, or where; and there’s no prize waiting for him or her. Nonetheless, those numbers generate some huge and interesting statistics in the aggregate. Facebook users have uploaded 50 billion photos (and tagged 15 billion of them). Einstein, Twain, Wilde, Gandhi and Shakespeare are among the most quoted people on profiles.
Nearly 20 percent of users list themselves as single, about 16 percent as married. Members create 400,000 events each day.
Yet one of the most interesting aspects of the community for Randi Zuckerberg, who does marketing for Facebook (and is founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sister), is what has stayed constant through the growth spurt. For example, “even back when we had 1 million users, Harry Potter and the Bible were the most popular books. 500 million later, Harry Potter and the Bible are still there.”
Facebook has grown up since it began as a haven for a few select universities in 2004. About 70 percent of Facebook’s users now live outside of the USA, with the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Brazil becoming some of the fastest-growing regions. “It has changed in a lot of ways,” Zuckerberg says. “Instead of looking at Facebook as a tool to look up other college students, you really feel like you can look up almost anyone in the world.”
Facebook eclipsed its former rival, MySpace, in April 2008 in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors, meeting it near the 100 million mark. It remains the largest in the social network universe, alongside quickly growing but still smaller networks such as Twitter and professional networking site LinkedIn, which have about 105 million and 70 million users, respectively. Facebook has gained 100 million new members since February alone.
“My prediction is that we’ll reach a billion users on Facebook,” says James Fowler, co-author of Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks.
Facebook’s exponential growth, Fowler says, reflects the “classic” growth pattern of networking technologies. First comes the steady trickle of early adopters. Their real-life social networks become the next wave, which eventually draws in even those hesitant to embrace the technology – older generations who can now view pictures of their grandchildren on Facebook.
“Early on, if you had a telephone, but none of your friends did, it wouldn’t have been useful to you,” Fowler says. “If you have two friends who get a telephone so they can talk to each other, you’ll suddenly have two reasons to adopt the technology.”
That expanding web lets users “see beyond their social horizon” to the big picture once only understood by researchers such as himself, Fowler says. “Now, on Facebook, they can see all the connections between their friends, and they have access to this picture of their world they never had before.”
No matter how big Facebook gets, Zuckerberg says, it will stay committed to enabling sharing. It has launched a site (stories. facebook.com) that allows users to submit stories about their experiences with the site – in 420 characters or less, of course, the length of a status update.
“Whether we’re 500 million or a billion or more, it’s still all about the site being personal and relevant for every individual,” Zuckerberg says. “We really still think of ourselves as at the beginning of the journey.”
Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY
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