Facebook, the biggest social-networking site, is seeking to raise $5 billion from its initial public offering, which would give it an estimated market capitalisation of $80-100 billion.
Let's have a look at Facebook's numbers, according to The Economist.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Active monthly users (December 2011): 840 million
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
India
Total population: 1.22 billion
Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
China
Total population: 1.34 billion
Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organised by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorise their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends".
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
The United States
Total population: 310 million
The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Indonesia
Total population: 240 million
Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.
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Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Brazil
Total population: 200 million
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Russia
Total population: 140 million
The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford University.
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Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Market capitalisation: $90 billion
It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Apple
Market capitalisation: $425 billion
However, based on ConsumersReports.org in May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms of service.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Market capitalisation: $188 billion
Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003, while attending Harvard as a sophomore.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Toyota
Market capitalisation: $132 billion
According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to Hot or Not, and "used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person".
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
McDonald's
Market capitalisation: $101 billion
To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic information).
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Amazon
Market capitalisation: $82 billion
Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Boeing
Market capitalisation: $56 billion
The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration.
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Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Staff strength: 3,200
Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
McDonald's
Staff strength: 1,70,000
Ultimately, however, the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final, by uploading 500 Augustan images to a Web site, with one image per page along with a comment section.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Toyota
Staff strength: 322,000
He opened the site up to his classmates, and people started sharing their notes.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Boeing
Staff strength: 172,000
The following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new Web site in January 2004. He was inspired, he said, by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Apple
Staff strength: 60,000
On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Amazon
Staff strength: 56,000
Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.
Amazing numbers reveal Facebook's strength
Staff strength: 32,000
The three complained to the Harvard Crimson, and the newspaper began an investigation. The three later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling.
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