Facebook gears up for next billion
NEW YORK — One billion people — one-seventh of the Earth’s population — logged in to Facebook on Monday, marking the first time that many members used the world’s largest online social network in a 24-hour period.
The milestone was mostly symbolic for Facebook, which boasts nearly 1.5 billion users who log in at least once a month. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the network in his Harvard dorm room 11 years ago, reflected on the occasion with a post.
“’I’m so proud of our community for the progress we’ve made,” he wrote. “Our community stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world.”
Facebook achieved one billion overall users in 2012, but this week’s milestone is perhaps more significant. It means the social network has become an essential service in many of our lives, a sort of online connective tissue that binds us to friends, family and even strangers who find themselves in similar circumstances. We need it daily, or more.
Facebook has long sought to connect everyone in the world with its service. A lofty goal, it’s not so different from the three other tech superpowers that are changing commerce, communication and worming their way into every part of our lives. Apple has its gadgets, Amazon delivers our every physical need — and when was the last time you went a day without Google?
Most of the people who logged in to Facebook on Monday were outside North America. Of Facebook’s overall users, more than 83 per cent come from other countries.
Facebook’s next billions of members will likely come from India, South America, Africa and perhaps even China, where the site is blocked.
To help expand its flock, Facebook has been working to make its service easier to use on the basic, oldfashioned phones used in many parts of the world. It’s also working to get Internet access to the roughly two-thirds of the world’s population that is not yet connected — or about five billion people.