

 Facebook Now Growing by Over 700,000 Users a Day, and New Engagement Stats - rokhayakebe
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/02/facebook-now-growing-by-over-700000-users-a-day-updated-engagement-stats/

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treyp
I'm really displeased with the comparison to a country. Saying something about
the percentage of people in the world that have signed up, or the growth rate
is okay, but the choice of where to live is pretty substantial compared to
signing up for a website. It's not like other countries are losing citizens
when somebody signs up for Facebook, and it's not like people are spending
their entire lives on/in Facebook either.

Another intellectually dishonest number I hear Facebook recite is the number
of developers. They get this number from the number of people who have
installed the developer application. In the first year of the platform, that
was 400,000. I know numerous friends who know nothing about programming that
installed the developer application in that first week because they didn't
know what they were doing. They recite this figure as if hundreds of thousands
of people have devoted their lives to making Facebook applications. Sorry to
burst someone's bubble, but it just ain't so.

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apowell
It takes nine months to produce a baby and only a few minutes to sign up for a
Facebook account.

To be fair, shouldn't we compare today's birth rate to Facebook's new account
signup rate nine months ago?

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redorb
your first reason, is enough not to compare the two. I don't think the 2nd
suggestion works out mathmatically.

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mixmax
Guess their growth won't last forever then.

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wheels
Dupe, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=686027>

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jemka
Considering how many people there on the earth, factoring in the number of
those with computers and sufficient internet access, I'd say new Facebook
users per day is rather low.

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Retric
I got the opposite impression, I think their numbers are incorrect in the
other direction. According to their numbers 5% of the global population is a
member which IMO is insane. But, with a growth rate of 7mill members every day
that would more than double by the end of the year.

My guess, is they count many people several times to inflate their numbers.
After all how can they tell a fake user from a real one on a free site.

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drawkbox
There is probably a huge market for detection algorithms for a real person to
a fake person.

Facebook is also becoming a gaming platform, but the problem there is that
users are given stuff for adding more friends. This has an effect on such
games as Mafia Wars that people create numerous fake accounts to setup attacks
and gain loot.

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Retric
So, would Facebook rather publish the "real" number, or a larger stable number
that keeps increasing and passes the smell test?

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c00p3r
Most of them will never log in again, or will do it once or twice.

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ivankirigin
They track monthly actives. The total account numbers are much higher.

