Facebook at 500

The social web was reminded of Facebook's sheer dominance this week when it announced that it had reached the half billion mark (Twitter meanwhile spent the week promising a new data center to keep the fail whale away from its 124 million users). PC World tried to put Facebook's size into perspective -- still smaller than Google, Microsoft and Yahoo but larger that every country except for China and India. Mark Zuckerberg marked the occasion by granting a rare interview to Diane Sawyer. The blog All Facebook extracted seven key takeaways from the interview that were of particular relevance to social media marketers.

Facebook's big week wasn't all fun and games for their PR department. Many blogs were talking about Facebook's embarrassingly low ranking in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, where it finished slightly lower than the IRS.

Looking towards the future, CNET's The Social looked towards Japan, Russia, Germany and Brazil for future growth in light of maturing USA penetration. ReadWriteWeb suggested that Facebook Credits could become a worldwide currency. Mitch Joel cautioned web marketers about the need to consider Facebook in smaller terms, where the market is not a monolithic half billion but rather a complex set of smaller networks averaging 130 friends each in size.