Zuckerberg Makes It Official: Facebook Hits 500 Million Members

techcrunch.com

20 points·ashishbharthi··7 comments

Facebook's blog post actually says "500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook" (emphasis mine), which makes this much more impressive.

Though I'd like to know what qualifies one as active. I'd also like to know the total number of registered users.

"users who have returned to the site in the last 30 days" facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet

It's still probably inflated by people with multiple profiles and people that quit within the month etc. However, it's also still accurate enough to be really impressive.

How big do you all think Facebook can reasonably get to? I have to think it's going to be difficult for Facebook to grow anywhere near as fast as they did to this point unless they can get to China.

It seems like most US companies (search, portal, etc.) haven't done very well in China - will Facebook be able to buck this trend?

I agree there has to be a saturation point they will reach. I thought it would have been reached before 500 million users though. I think Facebook could do very well in China, just like they are on the way to becoming #1 in India and Brazil.

Facebook is not accessible in China now -- at least not in its full form as we know it. Facebook will have to morph significantly to enter China (filtering, cooperating with authorities, cultural barriers, etc.). It will be interesting to see how this process works out.

Facebook's user population has been larger than the US population, ~300 million, for about a year. Facebook, considered as a nation, would have the 3rd largest population in the world. To move into 2nd place, Facebook would have to pass India -- 1.2 billion users/citizens.

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