Quick Facts

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This page includes a gathering of remarkable facts and information you might have never known about Facebook.com.

Contents

About how many friends does the average Facebook user have?

Depends a lot on your network. The last large scale study (Golder, Wilkinson, and Huberman 2005) calculated average mean per-user friend count for Facebook users in general to be about 144, with a median of roughly 180. Since Facebook has closed their network to research bots we no longer have an accurate figure. It's pretty likely, however, that numbers vary by context (for instance, those living in rural areas will have fewer friends), and by network size (students at a large public university will have the opportunity to meet more people than those at small <2000 institutions). The data Jeff Ginger collected in 2006 and 2007 indicated something around 150-200 UIllinois friends, on average. Cliff Lampe, in a talk at the University of Illinois (09.16.2008) displayed research that indicates something around 300 friends, on average, per person at Umich. As more people join Facebook the potential pool of friends goes up; we may have started to reach saturation as people are now networking and using tools to organize their friends, such as applications that cluster 'best friends' and filters on the newsfeed to hear about only certain people.

It also depends on how you define a friend. A lot of people might consider Facebook friends to be something entirely different than 'friends' in any sense of the word, so really who knows what the average is, it's all subjective anyway. And while the postmodernists might technically be right, being unable to ever really truly know anything isn't any fun.

Do People Really Log In Everyday?

Absolutely. At least those at the University of Illinois. Of those surveyed at UIUC the vast majority (over 75%) signed in 1-4 times a day or more. Some in interviews reported keeping the site open in a browser almost all of the time they're on a computer. Other news reports concur - though like total friends it varies greatly by context (network and potentially internet connection; for those with dial-up signing in many times a day is more of a hassle).

How much is Facebook.com worth?

Hard to say, it depends a lot on how you count.

To Students
Students in Jeff Ginger's interviews have described it as anything from a godsend to a cancer. So it's worth (in Utils? Anyone know how to consistently measure using those?) in utility varies by person considerably. In general, however, I think it's safe to say it's important to most college students. Both those in interviews and Ellison's (and company, 2006) study indicate they would miss the SNS if it were shut down.

As a Corporation
In addition to the transformative social nature of Facebook its potential worth is nothing to balk at. Facebook started off in the summer of 2004 with 500,000 dollars in funding from Peter Thiel and by of May 2005 had raised 12.7 million dollars in capital with Accel Partners (Facebook Factsheet 2008, Accel Partners website 2005). They later received 27.5 million from Greylock Partners and higher bids from the aforementioned investors (Facebook Factsheet 2008). In March of 2006 Business week reported on negotiations for a possible Viacom acquisition of the site. According to the article, the company declined an offer of $750 million and it was rumored that the asking price was as high as $2 billion (Rosenbush 2006).  As tensions escalated in 2007 surrounding Google’s Open Social the behemoth Microsoft took an equity stake in exchange for exclusive rights to handle ads for Facebook globally. Microsoft spent 240 million dollars for a 1.6 percent stake, which came from a total valuation of Facebook at 15 billion (Sloane 2007). Facebook’s true value is a subject of great debate; as with most businesses estimating worth becomes a tricky political matter.

For Research
The Facebook dataset presents an untold potential for authentic and elaborate detail on college student (and increasingly internet users at large) habits, interests, and marketability.  The information garnered from analysis of Facebook is arguably superior to what any broad data collection or survey on the college student population could pray to collect. Participants voluntarily present information about themselves instead of being asked or forced to do so by researchers.  As the social science realm comes to regularly recognize the importance of studying social networking on the internet, it is likely Facebook will become a common source of data for observation. A good example of a study that uses Facebook as a tool but does not focus explicitly on the service itself is that of Mayer and Puller in 2007, which studied Race and grouping effects based on ties on Facebook.

When did Facebook begin?

Facebook was formally launched to the public in February of 2004 and hit its first tipping point in the late summer of that year with the introduction of groups and public posting walls .

How many people are on Facebook?

In terms of users who have returned to the site in the past 30 days.

Facebook has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. The site grew slowly, but steadily until September of 2005 when High School networks were added. It took some time for the effect to kick in and the addition of work networks in May of 2005 helped to fuel the growth. The ball really started rolling in September of 2006 when open registration began, growing about 5 times in size over the course of a year. Growth rates have leveled off in many demographics in the US but Facebook still continues to enlarge rapidly in the global scene.

What's the biggest group on Facebook?

Unknown at the time of this writing. In the Running:

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