Facebook Hits 500 Million Users

  • Share
  • Read Later

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his social networking behemoth passed 500 million active users today.

In a blog post on the Facebook site, Zuckerberg writes about the milestone: “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.”

It’s worth nothing that Facebook’s metric for user counts is active users, someone who has logged into the Facebook site within the past 30 days. This makes the metric that much more impressive, as the 500 million user count can be seen as people who are actively using the site, discounting those who have registered and never returned.

Facebook’s growth continues at a prodigious rate. The site passed 250 million users nearly a year ago to date, announcing that milestone on July 15, 2009. As part of the 500 million mark, Facebook is soliciting stories from its users about how the site has made a difference in their lives. Check out the initiative (and watch a video of Mark) here.