Facebook announced today that the number of active members in the social networking site has reached 500 millions. Founded in 2004 at dorm rooms of Harvard, Facebook has been growing at a dramatic pace. Facebook took five years to get to 250 million users.
However, with in a year (since last summer) the number of Facebook users doubled to hit the 500 million users milestone. If Facebook continues to grow at this unprecedented rate, it will hit the billion mark by next year.
Announcing the milestone in its blog, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said
This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world. Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about.
To celebrate the milestone, Facebook launched a new application called Facebook Stories. At Facebook stories, one can share his/her own stories on the impact of Facebook and friends have had on his/her lives. Citing three stories of users, a student, a mother and a prime minister, Mark Zuckerberg said these stories are both humbling and inspiring. In addition, Facebook staff created a photo album with messages of thanks.
Facebook’s Privacy Troubles
On the way to reach the milestone Facebook did face a few privacy hurdles. Ever wanting to make the “world more open and connected”, Facebook kept changing the privacy settings of Facebook to make users content easily accessible by everyone. After seeing the back fire, Facebook apologized and tried to make its privacy setting simple and more secure.
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