Facebook attracts half a billion people in one day

We knew everyone and their dog was on Facebook nowadays, but did you realise just how many people visit the site in a single day? On a particular day last week, a staggering half a billion people logged on. That's almost everyone in the entire European Union. Within 24 hours. Mental.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at the social networking giant's f8 conference. 500 million people is the most ever on one social network during a 24-hour period, and puts Facebook up there with the likes of Google (and probably some naughty sites) in terms of numbers.

At the conference, held in San Francisco, Zuckerberg also unveiled some changes to the site's layout, introducing a new picture-heavy design. Timeline chronicles everything that you've ever uploaded year by year, so pretty soon you'll be able to scroll through someone's entire life in social media on one page.

A host of media partnerships were also announced with music, TV, movie and news companies letting you share with friends what you're watching, listening to and reading.

This landmark will be good news to those organisations signing deals with the social network, as it'll bring their services to an even wider audience. Facebook currently has 750 million users (though Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pegged it at 800 million during his speech, so maybe he knows something we don't).

Google Plus, the search giant's social network which opened its doors for all and sundry this week, is estimated to have around 25 million members. Earlier this month, Twitter announced it had more than 400 million monthly unique visitors.

Will you be checking out Facebook's new features? Are you using Google Plus? Or do you prefer Twitter? Or maybe you're a fan of all three? Let us know on our Facebook page or down in the comments section.