Facebook Reach the 500 Million User Mark

“This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world” shared Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook blog page. The Harvard drop-out billionaire, who began his Facebook creation in a university dorm, is using this occasion to praise and give thanks to the ever-increasing Facebook community.

To do this, a new application entitled 'Facebook Stories' has been launched. This is a page where members can read a multitude of global stories relating to users' Facebook experiences, as well as sharing their own.

In only 6 years, the site has become the biggest social media site in every country except China, Japan, and Russia. If it were a country of itself, it would contain the third largest population in the world.

In addition to their dominance of online social networking, Facebook are also “well positioned for the world beyond the broadband-connected PC” according to Richard Allen, Facebook's head of policy for Europe. Of the 500 million members, it is believed that some 150 million access the site via their mobile phones.

When the home page opens, we are told that “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life”. In fact, it lets you connect and share not only with the people in your life, but in everyone else's as well. For some, this may be the flaw in the largely spotless Facebook phenomenon.

Aleks Krotoski, a recent graduate with a Ph.D. in social psychology, believes that the blurring of the divisions between an individual's social groups on Facebook “could lead to defections unless the site can find ways to preserve that separation that we keep in real life.”

However, Monica Basso of analyst firm Gartner is certain that the social media site will continue to grow, and become “the hub for integration of social networks, as well as for social extensions of traditional websites and applications.”

The global reputation of the site has also been affected by the religious tension created following the 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' events. The anger felt by many Muslim Facebook members seems to have been re-ignited by the latest Facebook success.

On arriving at Mark Zuckerberg's '500 Million Stories' blog entry, one becomes aware that the comments are dominated by the posting of a “story” denouncing Facebook's approach to Muslim members of the site. This ongoing online protest will be a highly unwelcome addition to the application aimed at providing a platform for Facebook success stories.

Despite one's viewpoint on the what the future holds for Facebook, it is undeniable that it has become an established feature of our society, which has been culturally embedded in our collective psyche. Such is the global success of this site, that it has been translated into a film. Its tag-line - “You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies” - is particularly appropriate.