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“One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

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Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#141

Post by weavie »

adnrw wrote: post #139
monochromatic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a lot longer than that. > assuming you count once per second One second is counting pretty slow for small numbers, but it's counting really fast for big numbers. (How quickly can you say "three hundred twenty five million seven hundred ninety six thousand one hundred seventeen"?) And there are a lot more big numbers than small numbers.

I agree that at some point (probably reasonably early on actually) it would start taking longer to say the number out loud than one second, so you'd fall behind. However we're talking about counting which is not necessarily saying it out loud. You could just be pushing a button every second, or watching a drop of water fall from a pipe at a constant rate. Anyway, I remember learning this little fact as a kid and it m…

It may also be worth noting (when discussing national debt and the like) that 1 trillion = ~32,000 years.

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#142

Post by aristus »

bigtones wrote: post #137
aristus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I worked there, I "audited" the systems that count Facebook's active users. I needed to analyze code efficiency and feature growth over long periods of time, and so needed very accurate user counts in order to subtract user growth. Without going into details / trade secrets: there is more than one system, they can cross-check each other, and if anything it's conservative. You have to perform legit, non-driv…

They are not talking about active users. The metric quoted was "used Facebook in a single day". I know for a fact that they count any "Like" click or any Facebook comment on any web page on the internet when they quote "used Facebook". It does not mean logged into one of their apps.

I personally audited the entire pipeline, and code, from collection to analysis all the way to the little DAU ("daily active users") graph that informs this number. That experience, and years of working on related data sets inside Facebook, are enough to convince me that the 1B number is legit.

If that's not enough for you, well, maybe I can't help that. But I am curious what evidence leads you to believe something different. Serious question, genuinely curious.

Edit: to be clear, and IIRC, seeing a Like button is not counted. Actually Liking something, which posts to your news feed, does.

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#143

Post by peteretep »

bigtones wrote: post #137
aristus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I worked there, I "audited" the systems that count Facebook's active users. I needed to analyze code efficiency and feature growth over long periods of time, and so needed very accurate user counts in order to subtract user growth. Without going into details / trade secrets: there is more than one system, they can cross-check each other, and if anything it's conservative. You have to perform legit, non-driv…

They are not talking about active users. The metric quoted was "used Facebook in a single day". I know for a fact that they count any "Like" click or any Facebook comment on any web page on the internet when they quote "used Facebook". It does not mean logged into one of their apps.

Given that both actions require a Facebook account that you're logged in to, that seems pretty reasonable

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#144

Post by 0942v8653 »

gpcz wrote: post #115
0942v8653 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe; realistically, the Internet speed would probably be more of a limiting factor. At mine, it would take almost a week to fill up 1 terabyte of storage. That's plenty of time to go get a few more HDDs. At 1 Gbps you'd have about 2 hours.

I think you're underestimating the scale of this problem. According to http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/18/faceb... , people upload 350 million new photos per day, and they have 240 billion photos total. If we use 1 MB per photo as an average, you'd need about 334 terabytes to store a day of Facebook's pictures. You'd need 228882 terabytes to store the whole thing. Assuming Wikipedia's estimate of…

If you were bent on getting it all, even at 1 Gbps:

(228882 TB to Gb) sec to years = 58 yr 3 w 1 day 18 h 40 min

58 years is going to take a long time

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#145

Post by ljk »

ajkjk wrote: post #130

I hate stuff like this: "A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values. Thank you for being part of our community and for everything you've done to help us reach this milestone. I’m looking forward to seeing what we accomplish together." It reeks of dishonesty.…

ctrl+f'd the quote here, couldn't have said better myself

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#147

Post by toephu2 »

bigtones wrote: post #137
aristus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I worked there, I "audited" the systems that count Facebook's active users. I needed to analyze code efficiency and feature growth over long periods of time, and so needed very accurate user counts in order to subtract user growth. Without going into details / trade secrets: there is more than one system, they can cross-check each other, and if anything it's conservative. You have to perform legit, non-driv…

They are not talking about active users. The metric quoted was "used Facebook in a single day". I know for a fact that they count any "Like" click or any Facebook comment on any web page on the internet when they quote "used Facebook". It does not mean logged into one of their apps.

"I know for a fact" and how do you know this? do you work at facebook? Someone who used to work there just gave a contradicting statement

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#148

Post by lobe »

gpcz wrote: post #115
0942v8653 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe; realistically, the Internet speed would probably be more of a limiting factor. At mine, it would take almost a week to fill up 1 terabyte of storage. That's plenty of time to go get a few more HDDs. At 1 Gbps you'd have about 2 hours.

I think you're underestimating the scale of this problem. According to http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/18/faceb... , people upload 350 million new photos per day, and they have 240 billion photos total. If we use 1 MB per photo as an average, you'd need about 334 terabytes to store a day of Facebook's pictures. You'd need 228882 terabytes to store the whole thing. Assuming Wikipedia's estimate of…

If you wanted to go after photos for everyone I would agree with you. Probably just as interesting would be grabbing everyone's private messages, and although a large dump, would be nowhere as hard to store. A further option would be to filter whose photos you steal, so you only target celebrities and/or the rich and famous for maximum effect. It all depends on the aims of the hacker, but I would imagine you could make a devastating attack without stealing all of Facebook's data

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#149

Post by alecdbrooks »

brayton wrote: post #128

What are the next closest products in terms of single day user count?

Taken together, Coca-Cola's beverages might come close:

>Today, products of The Coca-Cola Company are consumed at the rate of more than 1.8 billion drinks per day. [0]

However, it's hard to say how that translates to unique people, since it's not uncommon for people to drink more than one soda a day. Not to mention the fact that the product lineup is very diverse: you could have orange juice for breakfast (Minute Maid), water for lunch (Dasani), a sports drink after your workout (Powerade), and soda with dinner (Coke) and be individually responsible for four drinks.

Probably unnecessary disclaimer: I own a small amount of Coca-Cola stock.

[0] http://www.coca-colacompany.com/contact-us/faqs

Re: “One billion people used Facebook in a single day”

#150

Post by gull »

ajkjk wrote: post #130

I hate stuff like this: "A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values. Thank you for being part of our community and for everything you've done to help us reach this milestone. I’m looking forward to seeing what we accomplish together." It reeks of dishonesty.…

"A more open and connected world is a better world."

Well, it depends on the baseline. The goal should be to get the balance right.

If you cross some threshold and become too open and too connected, the motto can easily flip to: a more secure (less open) and more independent (less connected) world.

It would be to Facebook's advantage to think of the other half of the problem because it could be worth another billion users.

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