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1 billion people used Facebook on Monday
What were you doing Monday? According to Mark Zuckerberg, it probably included using Facebook. He just posted that for the first time, the social network notched one billion individual users in a single day, calling it "just the beginning of connecting the whole world." With that kind of scale, it's no wonder the exec is focused on drones, lasers and satellites to connect the rest of the world to the internet ASAP, because he's got an idea what they'll be logging in to eventually.
Up to 23 million active Twitter accounts are bots (updated)
Twitter's said its active user base is growing, but not every account that's active is necessarily a flesh-and-blood human. Alongside those verified accounts of the stars, there are all kinds of bots that use the service to deliver completely stupid nonsense, sudden (urgent!) sale news and even earthquake reports -- well, some have their uses. Twitter's now disclosed some specific numbers, noting that bot accounts total up to 8.5 percent of its active user count at the end of June. That's roughly 23 million tweeters that aren't human - and probably aren't going to be clicking on that ad for Innovative Cloud Storage Solutions any time soon. Update: Twitter reached out to Engadget and Quartz to clarify: this 8.5 percent are accounts that have "automatically contacted our servers for regular updates", which could also include our own Twitter feed. Twitter's SEC filing does go into particularly deep specifics on this, however.
Twitter's active user growth continued to improve this quarter
One of Twitter's primary concerns is that the number of active users -- those who use the network at least once a month -- continues to grow at a healthy pace, and its latest quarterly earnings confirm that the social network has been eating its vegetables. After reporting a solid growth of 14 million active users last quarter, the service brought in 16 million this time around, reaching a grand total of 271 million. This is an increase of 6.3 percent, which is an improvement over last quarter's 5.8 percent (though not quite as good as the ten percent growth the company saw a year ago). Not bad, given that it had to admit a slowing number of new users earlier this year in its first earnings report as an IPO. Of this number, Twitter acknowledged that 78 percent of them are actively using the service on mobile devices (this is reflected in the fact that 81 percent of advertising revenue comes from smartphones and tablets).
Twitter notches more than 200 million active monthly users
Sure, Facebook may have scored one billion active monthly users earlier this fall, but Twitter has some celebrating to do as well -- albeit for a significantly smaller figure. Rather than commemorating the announcement with an awkward commercial comparing itself to furniture, Twitter sent out a solitary tweet stating that it now has more than 200 million monthly active users. We last checked in on the microblogging service's traction when it had 175 million registered users in 2010, and as of last summer it's said to be sitting pretty with more than 500 million in total. Costolo and Co. may not have numbers as enormous as Facebook, but these stats aren't exactly something to scoff at. [Image credit: Coletivo Mambembe, Flickr]
