It wasn’t long when Indonesia surpassed the UK to become the country with the second largest number of Facebook users.
Indonesia achieved the feat in November 2010. As of February 1, 2012, India has dethroned Indonesia for the spot with a total of 43,497,980 Facebook users, and Indonesia with 43,060,360 Facebook users slipped to number three.
Facebook users growth in India
The U.S. with 155,701,780 Facebook users continues to be the largest Facebook Nation accounting for roughly 19% of the total Facebook users worldwide.
During the past 12 months or so, India recorded an impressive growth of 144%. On January 2011, India had only 16,915,900 Facebook users and was placed sixth.
Another country that showed a more impressive growth rate is none other than the largest South American country – Brazil. Brazil with 37,907,400 Facebook users is now the fourth largest Facebook Nation, with an impressive growth rate of 183% over the past year.
How long do you think India will take to become the largest Facebook Nation?
Around 408,000 US Facebook users, and 1.78 million worldwide will kick the bucket in 2011, according to a data from Entrustet.
The company analyze data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control with information served by Facebook’s advertising platform to come up with the estimate deaths of Facebook users.
Entrustet is, a so-called digital asset planning company whose mission, according to their website, is “to allow people to quickly, easily and securely protect their digital assets at the time of their passing.”
User Deaths on Facebook Estimate
The accuracy of the chart is highly debatable and I guess there is no point debating about it. But brr… it sure give me the chills.
Several of the Popular Facebook applications are transmitting personal data to advertising and internet tracking companies according to the WSJ.
WSJ reports that millions of users are affected by this privacy breach, including those users who are using Facebook’s highest level of privacy settings. This practice is against breaks Facebook’s rules concerning privacy, which state that app developers were not allowed to pass user’s data to outside firms, even if the user has given permission. This has renewed concerns about Facebook’s ability to keep its users’ information secure.
The WSJ said the apps were passing Facebook IDs to at least 25 firms, who use them to build profiles of web users. WSJ also pointed out that a particular firm called RapLeaf was using the Facebook IDs in its own database as well as passing them on to several other firms.
All of the 10 most popular apps that include popular games like Zynga’s FarmVille, Texas Holdem Poker, FrontierVille, were found to be transmitting users’ IDs.
Most apps are developed by third-parties and not by Facebook. If you are unable to access some apps starting this weekend, then Facebook might have disabled them.
“We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms,” Facebook said.
It is not known how long apps on Facebook have been transmitting user’s information. All the parties said they have no idea the breach was occurring.
A Zynga spokeswoman said, “Zynga has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties. We look forward to working with Facebook to refine how web technologies work to keep people in control of their information.”
Facebook said it is working to “dramatically limit” the exposure of users’ personal information and introduce new systems to make it harder for apps to send user data to other companies.
This week…
An international paedophile ring-leader was sentenced to four years in prison. Ian Green, 45, was already a convicted sex offender. He admitted to distributing up to 100,000 indecent images of children on Facebook.
Green is said to have used 11 Facebook accounts for his operation. The join operation involving U.S., Canada, Germany, Switzerland and south Africa has led to the arrest of 14 suspected offenders. (Read More)
As the days passed by with more arrest in connection with the operation, a glamorous Russian spy, Anna Chapman, found herself in trouble after posting a picture from a photo shoot on Facebook. She is accused of breaching copyright by Heat magazine. Ms. Chapman was at the centre of the biggest spy exchange in decades between United State and Russia last July. (Read More)
Mary Bale, 45, managed to gain worldwide recognition at par with the paedophile operation on Facebook by dumping a a cat in the owner’s bin was posted on the internet.
She became an international hate figure after a video of her action was posted online. Her action drew widespread ire and verbal attacks from animal lovers around the world. Several Facebook hate pages and groups against her have also came out, with many people leaving angry and abusive messages and even some death threats. However, her mother insists that Ms. Bales had always been and animal lover.
Ms. Bales defended her actions at first saying that she did it as a joke and didn’t expect the cat to get trapped, but she finally apologized for her actions. (Read more)
At its current growth rate, Facebook is well on track to reach the 500 million user mark by June 2010. Despite the recent controversy over privacy concerns, Facebook is growing at a steady pace. At the current rate Facebook should reach 600 million users and $1 Billion a year in revenue by the end of 2010.
