Two billions. An astronomical figure, if compared to that of the entire world population (part of which does not even have access to the Internet or is not educated…), which today is equal to 7,4 billion people. More than a quarter of them, in every corner of the planet, are active Facebook users, not surprisingly the most popular social network on five continents. The number is exactly double that of five years ago: in 2012, in fact, the active users of the platform that Mark Zuckerberg founded in 2004 were 1 billion.
The announcement was made by Zuckerberg himself on his personal wall: “As of this morning, the Facebook community is now officially 2 billion people! We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together. It's an honor to be on this journey with you”, wrote the CEO & Founder.
But what does active user mean? Technically it is the user who connects at least once a month, a frequency which for the average Facebook user is still very low. Conceived as a network for Harvard students, initially the name was "The Facebook" and it reached one million subscribers in the first year after its creation. In 2010, there were half a billion active users, doubled in the space of two years, when listing on the Stock Exchange also arrived. Today Facebook has 18 employees worldwide, with offices in 50 cities including Milan. AND Whatsapp and Instagram also belong to his galaxy, which they too continue to grow dramatically: the instant messaging app now has 1,2 billion active users worldwide, while the photographic site is around 700 million.
