Facebook hits one billion active monthly user mark

Facebook has hit one billion active monthly users, or one in every seven people in the world, its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has confirmed. Facebook also used the milestone to launch a digital video ad titled "The Things that Connect Us,"  to promote its own advertising tools.

"Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life," wrote Zuckerberg in a Facebook timeline update on his personal account. "I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too."

Facebook has recorded 1.13 trillion Likes, 140.3 billion friend connections and 219 billion shared photos since its launch in February 2004. More than 300 million photos are uploaded every day and 62.6 million songs played, according to the Guardian. 

At the same time, rumours are circulating that Facebook makes public users’ private messages in Timeline, sparkling concerns of privacy issues, The Washington Post reported.

Facebook explained that the Timeline messages were actually old wall posts.

“Every report we’ve seen, we’ve gone back and checked. We haven’t seen one report that’s been confirmed [of a private message being exposed]. A lot of the confusion is because before 2009 there were no likes and no comments on wall posts. People went back and forth with wall posts instead of having a conversation [in the comments of single wall post],” TechCrunch cited Facebook as saying.

The world's biggest social network recently launched paid posts for individual users, allowing users to pay about $7 to promote their news in their friends' timelines.

Facebook’s tumbling IPO means it has to work harder, with smarter, more targeted and more lucrative advertisements, according to The Washington Post.


Image: Facebook