Half way to a Billion

Facebook announces its social networking site is expected to reach the 500-million users mark sometime this week.

The social networking giant plans to celebrate the milestone by sharing Facebook stories provided by users.

“In the past, it’s been all about the numbers and milestones, and we realized we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users,” said Facebook’s marketing director Randi Zuckerberg told All Things Digital’s BoomTown blog last week. Randi Zuckerberg is the sister of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Users can share their stories by submitting them to a page Facebook setup.

Facebook debuted in 2004 at Harvard University. The social networking site spread among college and university campuses across the country. The site had 1 million users in its first ten months. Last February, Facebook had more than 400 million users.

It’s a staggering number when you put it in perspective. There are more than 6.69 billion people in world, according to the World Bank. If Facebook reaches 500 million users this week, that’s almost one-twelfth of the world’s population.

This figure should give us pause. Although Facebook tauts the milestone as 500 million users, it’s probably more like 500 million accounts. Just like one person could have several emails, one person could have several Facebook accounts.