On Monday Facebook notched up probably its greatest achievement so far. The service was used by over 1 billion people in the single day on that day. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg, in a wall post on the social media, said this is first time the company saw such usage figures.
“We just passed an important milestone. For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.”
Zuckerberg, who is the richest human being under the age of 35, said that the Monday’s usage figure was more than just a figure. He said it was a testament to the work that Facebook is doing in bringing communities and people together. “When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different. This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it’s just the beginning of connecting the whole world. I’m so proud of our community for the progress we’ve made,” he wrote.
In its latest quarterly results, Facebook had said that it had 1.49 billion active users. In India, the company has over 100 million users.
Facebook, which started in 2004 as a social media website for a college, has come a long way in the last one decade. With its eclectic mix of feature set and ease of use, the website not only prevailed upon the competitors such as Orkut and MySpace but has also managed to grow in clout and influence. Because of its huge user base and the number of services that it offers, the company is almost like a mini internet.
Facebook also has a fairly popular Messenger app as well as owns WhatsApp, which is used by nearly 600 million smartphone users worldwide.
In his post, Zuckerberg said that with Facebook he wants to not only create a more connected world but also the one that is more open. “Our community stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world,” he wrote in his post. “A more open and connected world is a better world.”