Facebook to reach 500 mn users, Set to change looks

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Alex White

21 July, 2010

So there is a vast scope in the Asia region where it has been catching up its rival Orkut. As long as Facebook was limited to certain languages it has not shown a good growth rate.

FACEBOOK IS all set to get its 500 millionth user this week! That will be a great achievement not to forget the fact that it has been growing outstandingly.

In July 2009, it had around 200 million users. But a sudden surge doubled its user base earlier this year taking the figure to 400 million mark. And now, it’s not even six months since then, they are talking 500 million!

"Penetration (of Facebook into regional Internet markets) is highest in North America, at 69 per cent, and Middle East-Africa, at 67 per cent, and still pretty high in Latin America (58 per cent) and Europe (57 per cent)," explained Andrew Lipsman, senior director of industry analysis at traffic firm ComScore. "But there is still a lot of room for growth in Asia-Pacific, which currently has just 17 per cent market penetration."

So there is a vast scope in the Asia region where it has been catching up its rival Orkut. As long as Facebook was limited to certain languages it has not shown a good growth rate. But the moment it rolled out the site translated in various European language and native language of many nations, it was received with pleasure.

There are some issues like its US like privacy policies which doesn’t suit all the countries. Germany has problems with it so has Russia and china. Brazil is a big nation where Orkut has the largest penetration. If Facebook aims to grab a sizable user chunk it will have to look into privacy policy and native language support.

The guys at Facebook have been adding certain things at regular interval to keep it thriving. The company has planned a new marketing initiative called Facebook Stories. This is expected to be announced after the magical mark of 500 million is breached.

The stories will be of 420 character length and will be real ones submitted by users based on themes and locations. Some of the themes which are to be out there are "finding love," "natural disasters," and “coping with grief.”

“We really think by surfacing these stories, users can explain what Facebook is a lot better than we can,” said Zuckerberg.

Sources have also claimed that new tab designs will be coming to Facebook as soon as the 500 million users proclamation is made.