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Facebook hits 100 million users

Fewer than five years after then-college student Mark Zuckerberg created the site in his dorm room, the social network has 100 million active users, most of which are now outside the U.S.

Caroline McCarthy Former Staff writer, CNET News
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos.
Caroline McCarthy

Facebook has hit 100 million active users. No formal press release has been issued, so you're going to have to believe the guy who built the site.

The news came straight from the source: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and several of his fellow executives put it in their status messages on the social network, and platform manager Dave Morin broadcast it in his Twitter feed. At least one of them referred to the number being "active users," the statistic that Facebook prefers to use, rather than registered accounts overall.

While Facebook got its start at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. in 2004, most of this recent growth is coming from outside the U.S. Recently released statistics for July from traffic firm ComScore say that out of the approximately 145 million unique visitors coming to Facebook's domain, under 40 million of them were from its home country.