This isno surprise to anyone even remotely following the company, butFacebook founder and CEOMark Zuckerberg just made things official on the company’s blog: the social network is now500 million members strong.

According to Zuckerberg, the milestone was hit this morning, which I suspect may be disregarding the exact time just a little.

Either way, Facebook has put together acollection of stories (that page / app is down for me, but is likely being slammed right now) that users have shared with the company, detailing the impact the social network has had on their lives.

In addition, Facebook has put together a photo album withmessages of thanks.

Zuckerberg will be making an appearance tonight on ABC’s “World News” in aninterview with anchor Diane Sawyer to talk more about the impressive milestone. What, you don’t think going from a couple to half a billion active users in six years counts as an impressive feat?

To put it in perspective: it was only five and a half months ago when Facebook celebrated its sixth birthday andhit 400 million active users – about as long as it took them to go from300 million to 400 million. Does that mean Facebook will grow to 600 million members by the end of the year, or could it possibly be peaking?

Zuckerberg is actually quite confident they’ll hit1 billion active users at some point – just last month, at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, heargued that it is “almost a guarantee that it will happen”.

But wait, don’t you allhate Facebook so much you werequitting soon?

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