The #RLTM Scoreboard: Social Networking Stats for the Week
| Facebook: | over 800 million users | via Facebook |
| Twitter: | over 200 million users | via ReadWriteWeb |
| Renren: | over 170 million users | via iResearch iUser Tracker |
| Qzone: | 500 million active users | via China Internet Watch |
| Sina Weibo: | over 250 million users | via Forbes |
| LinkedIn: | 135 million members | via LinkedIn |
| Groupon: | 115 million subscribers | via Reuters |
| Google Plus: | over 62 million users | via Paul Allen |
| Tumblr: | 40.5 million blogs | via Tumblr |
| Posterous: | 3.9 million members | via SF Gate |
| 7.5 million monthly uniques | via TechCrunch | |
| Foursquare: | 15 million users | via Mashable |
| 15 million users | via The Next Web |
Please email marissa@modernmediapartners.com if you have additional updates, or a social network that you feel should be on the list.
Facebook To Reach One Billion Users In August
A new study by senior analyst Gregory Lyons at digital marketing firm iCrossing predicts that Facebook will reach one billion users (14% of the world’s population) in August 2012.
Following Facebook’s announcement of topping 800 million active users, Lyons decided to use the social network’s current growth rate to predict when Facebook is likely to hit one billion active users. While Facebook grew at an exponential rate from 2006 until mid-2008, recent data shows a more linear growth rate. “Using a process of linear regression on the data from the end of 2008 onwards,” Lyons estimates that August 2012 will see Facebook hit the one billion milestone.
While Facebook’s growth has slowed or stopped in ‘early adopting’ countries, including the U.S. (with 49% of the population on Facebook) and the UK (47%), developing countries such as India and Brazil are showing strong growth. Within the last nine months, India has grown from 22 million users to 36 million, and Brazil from 13 million to 30 million. And there’s plenty of room for this growth to continue: only 3% of India’s population, and just 16% of Brazil’s population, are on Facebook so far.
What do you think? Is this prediction overly optimistic, or could the rapid spread of Facebook in developing nations lead the social network to top the one billion mark even earlier?
