Facebook reaches 500 million users

July 22, 2010

Facebook, which has been active for six years, has announced that the website reached a total of 500 million users on Wednesday. According to, this number equates to one out of every fourteen people or, according to , 8% of the population of the.

Mark Zuckerberg, the and founder of Facebook, created a blog post in relation to this 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," he wrote. "This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world."

To mark the occasion, the California, United States-based company released an application, entitled Facebook Stories, that allows the website's users to "tell the incredible stories of the moving and interesting ways they've used Facebook". Zuckerberg stated that there is a "good chance" of Facebook reaching a total of a billion members in the next three to five years.