While I was sleeping a few days ago a shepherd in Uzbekistan logged onto the the internet, created a Facebook account and then took a photo of his favourite sheep to become the one billionth person on the planet to join Facebook.
It most probably happened on his iPhone that had been bought online because someone told him on Twitter about a special discount deal at an online store.
We live in a world that we barely recognise from only 10 years ago that now includes mobile science fiction defying devices called smart phones and strange terms and activities such as tweets, likes and pinning.
We think nothing of starting up Skype (with over 650 million registered users) and having a video call with a friend or colleague in Iceland while sipping on a chardonnay. It is a global mind meld with multi-media telepathy.
Just last Thursday Facebook officially announced that they had passed this significant milestone. The number is sizeable and the moment is worth noting but it is the other facts and figures that accompany this social media trivia titbit, that put into perspective how much social networks have woven themselves into the fabric of our lives. These include photos downloaded, the total number of friend connections and songs downloaded.
The Other Statistics
While Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest and other photo sharing sites are significant the Facebook ecosystem makes them look like an afterthought along with the other accompanying facts.
- 219 billion photos have been uploaded onto Facebook (including that sheep photo)
- Since the Facebook “like” was introduced in 2009 (yes, it was only 3 years ago and now it is ubiquitous) we have hit that button 1.13 trillion times
- There have been 140.3 billion friend connections (no mention of how much “unfriending has ocurred)
- 17 billion location-tagged posts, including check-ins
- 62.6 billion songs have been played 22 billion times which is 210,000 years of music
- Average age of a Facebook user is 22 years
- Facebook now has 600 million mobile users
In 2008 (which is only 4 years ago) Facebook only had 100 million users. It isn’t time to relax though as there are still over 6 billion more people to sign up.
Source for Infographic: Mashable
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