• USA Today, Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:06 PM

As expected, Facebook signed up its 500 millionth member this week -- up from about 100 million just two years ago -- the social net said Wednesday. Facebook has amassed 100 million new members since February alone. And, as USA Today notes, the statistics only get more startling from there.

On an average day in Facebookland, 115 million "friendships" are confirmed, while members post about 400,000 events. To date, Facebook users have uploaded 50 billion photos, and tagged 15 billion of them. Meanwhile, about 70% of Facebook's users now live outside of the United States, with the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Brazil becoming some of the fastest growing regions. Partly as a result, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently predicted that Facebook would hit a billion members.

Read the whole story at USA Today »