More than 500 million people have joined the social networking site Facebook, the company's founder has announced.
It means almost eight per cent of the world's population use the tool to connect with friends, family and colleagues.
The 'important milestone' comes only months after Facebook announced that 400 million users were active on the site.
Popular: Facebook now has half a billion users, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg, which is eight per cent of the world's population
The company's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said: 'As of this morning, 500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them.
'This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world. Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about.'
To mark passing the 500 million figure, the company is launching a new application from today known as 'Facebook Stories' which will encourage people to upload their real-life stories to share with others.
Recently Mr Zuckerberg said the company is likely to reach the billion-user mark but technology bloggers are sceptical and have suggested the current figure may be a peak.
Student: Facebook.com's mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg, created the website while at Harvard University
The company - which is based in Palo Alto, California - now employs more than 1,400 people around the world.
The website, which was originally created for college students to keep in contact with one another, was launched in 2004 by Mr Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin in their dorm room at Harvard University.
Now it is one of the busiest websites in the world - people spend 500 billion minutes a month trawling through the site.
The average member has more than 130 friends and creates 70 pieces of content each month.
In the last five months it has gained more than 100 million unique users - a member who returns to the site more than once in a month.
The large number of users, and the information they post about themselves online, has made the website vulnerable to criticism over its privacy settings.
Online security experts, internet users and the European Commission lambasted the company over alterations of the privacy settings which made it more difficult for users to keep their personal information private.
Recently Facebook, which says privacy is a 'top priority', launched a new 'simplified' setting to enable users to easily safeguard their data.
The rapid growth of users has come as bad news to other social networking sites such as Bebo.
The website, which was launched in 2005, was recently saved from the axe after AOL sold it to Criterion Capital.
It has 4.4 millions members in the UK who were responsible for generating well over half of the social networking site's 1.9 billion page impressions a month.
Online rumours are speculating that web giant Google is planning to take a step into the social networking market and could launch its own site in the near future.
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