During 2009, nearly a hundred million words a day were posted in status updates on Facebook—well over a thousand per second during peak times and up by a factor of four from the previous year, according to Facebook's Data Team. In addition, Farmville became the most talked-about application in status updates during 2009 and now boasts over 72 million monthly active users.
Facebook examined the frequency of words and phrases in US status updates for 2009, revealing the following top 15 trends:
- Facebook Applications: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living. Facebook has provided a platform for developers to create popular interactive programs, with the most recent trend being farming-related applications.
- FML: This digital slang for "F--- my life," became the hottest acronym
to enter the Facebook lexicon in 2009, spreading from relatively low
usage to become mainstream in status updates. "FML" is used almost
exclusively online and in text messages, and its meaning, once very
specific, has broadened to general exasperation—interestingly, it
appears most often on Mondays and Tuesdays.
- Swine Flu: Flue, Swine Flu, H1N1.
- Celebrity Deaths: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays.
- Family: Family, Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Kids. As more people from
older generations sign up for Facebook, they talk more frequently about
and with family. Significant increases occurred in the incidence of
family-related words: The use of "mom," "dad," "son," and "daughter"
all at least doubled since the beginning of 2008. Perhaps the most
dramatic increase, though, is in "kids," which went up by a factor of
five.
- Movies: New Moon, Transformers, Star Trek, The Hangover, Paranormal Activity, Harry Potter.
- Sports: Steelers (Super Bowl), Yankees (World Series).
- Health Care: Health Care, and the meme "No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day."
- Facebook: FB, FB Friends, News Feed. Facebook users discuss Facebook a
fair amount, particularly whenever changes are made to the site. For
example, huge spikes occur in mentions of "News Feed" whenever there is
a change to the way this service works (on the order of 100-fold
increases). The use of abbreviated terms such as "FB" and "FB Friends"
has grown in popularity as Facebook has become more prevalent; as a
result, the baseline rate (non-spiking) of use of "FB" has gone up
about 20X since the beginning of 2008. The rise in "FB Friends" has
been even more dramatic, with about a 100-fold increase over the same
time period.
- Twitter: Twitter, RT. Twitter has also gained in popularity, and many Facebook users are also tweeters. Since the peak in April, mentions of Twitter have fallen somewhat. By contrast, the acronym "RT," standing for "retweet," didn't really enter the lexicon until September 2008, and it lagged a little behind talk of Twitter itself. However, it has become a common acronym for any sort of reposting, not just on Twitter, and it has remained high as many Facebook users now use "RT" when they repost something.
- Years: 2008, 2009, 2010.
- Lady Gaga: Gaga, Poker Face.
- Yard: As Facebook observes, "Yard" seems fairly uncommon and a trend that nobody would have guessed. Their explanation: "Hipsters' moms and dads are also on Facebook, and these folks have yards that require some tending."
- Religion: Easter, Lord, God.
- I: A trend caused by Facebook after March 2009 as a result of status update program changes.
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Top 2009 Facebook Statistics
The number of Facebook users reached 350 million in 2009, with 50% of those users logging in on any given day and 35 million of them updating their status daily, according to research compiled by Brian Solis.
Other key statistics about Facebook:
- 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month.
- 55 million status updates are posted each day.
- 3.5 million events are created each month.
- There are more than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook.
- Over 700,000 local business maintain active Pages on Facebook.
Facebook users:
- On average, each user has 130 friends on the site.
- On average, users spend more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.
- The Like button is used by each user on nine pieces of content, on average, each month.
- 25 comments are written by each user on Facebook content each month.
- Most users are a member of at least 12 groups.
International Facebook users:
- About 70% of Facebook users are outside the US.
- Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translation application.
Facebook platform:
- Facebook currently hosts a developer network of more than one million entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries.
- Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications.
- Over 500,000 active applications are available.
- More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users.
- 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008.
- Two-thirds of comScore's US Top 100 websites and half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect.
Mobile users:
- More than 65 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices.
- Those who access Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active than non-mobile users.
- More than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries deploy and promote Facebook mobile products.
