Facebook crosses 250 million active users milestone
16 Jul 2009
The world's largest social-networking service Facebook announced yesterday that it has passed 250 million active users by adding an impressive 50 million new users in less than four months.
In April, just a few months after its fifth anniversary, Facebook welcomed its 200 millionth user, storming past rival MySpace.com, the pioneer of the social networking phenomenon. (See: Social networking site Facebook welcomes its 200-millionth user)
Palo Alto-based Facebook had almost 222 million unique visitors in December, while My Space, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp had 125 million.
Once thought of as the up-and-coming social network, Facebook, is on course cross 300 million before the year is over and surpass the world's third-largest population figure, the US, which is currently, a little over 300 million. (February 2009 estimate: 306 million).
Writing in a Blog, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, said, ''As of today, 250 million people are using Facebook to stay updated on what's happening around them and share with the people in their lives. The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us, and it affirms that people everywhere are realizing the power of staying connected to everything they care about on Facebook.''
''From the beginning, Facebook hasn't been about building a website. Facebook is about all of the people using it and all of the things that are important to you. The 250 million of you on Facebook today are what gives Facebook life and makes the site meaningful to everyone using it, so we thank you, he added.
According to a July 2009 study conducted by US media research firm Nelson Online, users of Facebook are spending more time on the site with Americans spending an average of four hours, 39 minutes and 33 seconds on the site in June, significantly more than the average the time spent on any other social networking web site.
It is also the sixth most trafficked site in the US and top photo sharing site with uploads of more than 4.1 billion photos.
