Facebook celebrates users as half billion milestone announced

It’s an impressive achievement – 500 million users since its launch in February 2004. In fact, Facebook’s user-base is now the same size as the populations of the U.S., Japan and Germany combined.

And what better way to mark the occasion than putting the spotlight on those that have made Facebook the social networking giant it is today – the users.

“As we anticipate our 500m milestone, we wanted to find a different way to announce and celebrate it,” said Randi Zuckerberg, marketing director at Facebook. “In the past it has been all about the numbers and milestones, and we realized we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users.”

And it is users that are at the heart of Facebook’s new campaign – Facebook Stories. Users are encouraged to submit stories of how Facebook has impacted on their lives whether it’s about love, loss, finding new friendships or, perhaps, some nasty ex-spouse stalking stories.

There is some structure to user submissions, as All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher points out in her exclusive. “The stories will have two views – organized by geographical location and by theme, such as “finding love,” “coping with grief” and “natural disasters.”” They are also limited to 420 characters.

Facebook has also reached a mobile milestone, having recently announced 150 million mobile users – a 50% increase on the 100 million mobile users reported in April this year.