Facebook now has half a billion users

Posted on 22 Jul 2010 at 10:15

The 500,000,000th user has signed up to Facebook, which means that roughly one in 12 people on Earth now uses the social networking site. In fact, there are plenty of other statistics that make for fascinating reading.

For example, around 26 million people in the UK are signed up, which is the equivalent of one-third of the country. More than 3 billion pictures are uploaded every month, and 60 million status updates every day. Collectively, users spend 700 billion minutes on the site each month, with each user creating an average of 90 pieces of content per month and having an average of 130 friends.

To mark the milestone, Facebook has released 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".

Facebook was set up by student Mark Zuckerberg in a university dorm room in 2004. It's worth an estimated £15billion, but Zuckerberg is currently facing a legal challenge from salesman Paul Ceglia. Ceglia, who was then working as a web designer, claims he has an 84 per cent share in Facebook, having signed a deal with Zuckerberg in April 2003. He says he invested $1,000 in what was the forerunner to Facebook.

Author: Jim Martin

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