Facebook announced this morning that it reached 1 billion monthly active users on September 14 at 12:45 PM Pacific time.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a message this morning, saying, “This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month. If you’re reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you. Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life. 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.”
He also posted the following video to his timeline (click to view it there):
Zuckerberg had this to say about the video, which is reportedly running on television: “Celebrating a billion people is very special to me. It’s a moment to honor the people we serve. For the first time in our history, we’ve made a brand video to express what our place is on this earth. We believe that the need to open up and connect is what makes us human. It’s what brings us together. It’s what brings meaning to our lives. Facebook isn’t the first thing people have made to help us connect. We belong to a rich tradition of people making things that bring us together.”
“Today, we honor this tradition,” he adds. “We honor the humanity of the people we serve. We honor the everyday things people have always made to bring us together: Chairs, doorbells, airplanes, bridges, games. These are all things that connect us. And now Facebook is a part of this tradition of things that connect us too. I hope you enjoy this video as much as we do. Thanks for helping connect a billion people.”
It’s hard to believe that Facebook has doubled its number since the marketing campaign for The Social Network was touting 500 million users (which when it began, was accurate). For that matter, it’s hard to believe that Facebook has gained 45 million new active users just since its earnings release in July.
I guess Facebook isn’t getting any smaller. The company is celebrating by testing a new feature that lets you pay to make sure people actually see the udpates you post.