Technology News

Facebook Milestones: Social Network Hits 1 Billion Users In A Day, Launches ‘M’

Milestones are nothing new for Facebook, whether it was the company’s astronomical rise to fortune or founder Mark Zuckerberg and his partner’s forthcoming first child.

However, this past week several news outlets reported the news that Facebook reached an unfathomable level: more than 1 billion people logged into the site on August 24.

Market research site Zacks referenced the post in which Zuckerberg broke the news.

While past reports from Facebook have indicated that more than 1 billion users average at least one login per day, this is the first time the company has said that 1 billion users have logged in during a single day.

Zuckerberg was quoted as saying that “for the first time ever” nearly 15 percent of the world’s population used the site in one day.

On (Aug. 24), one in seven people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.

The news came just days before the company announced this past Thursday they are beta-testing an add-on to Facebook known as “M”, a personal assistant which, according to Tech Crunch, will have the capability to help Facebook users “buy items” and make reservations.

Reporter Lucas Matney was skeptical of the assistant, saying “it is clear that it is going to be different” but that he wasn’t “so convinced” the new assistant would be worth the trouble.

It is clear that it is going to be different, and with so many buggy, mediocre digital assistants out there, different has to be a good thing, right? Well, I’m not so convinced.

While many companies have made a push for voice-activated assistants, Facebook is taking a different route: M is “text-based.”

M bucks the convention of being voice-activated, it lives inside the Messenger app and is primarily text-based. This is a mistake.

Forbes‘ Tony Bradley was more optimistic about the assistant, but still had his reservations about its effectiveness.

He quoted Facebook Vice President of Messaging Products David Marcus as saying that M will be able to make purchases, get gifts for people, book restaurants and more, a feature which sets it apart from other AI platforms.

Though the services M may be able to offer are more extensive, critics say actually having to open Facebook to use M is a drawback when compared to AI platforms Siri and Cortana.

Click to comment
To Top

Hi - We Would Love To Keep In Touch

If you liked this article then please consider joing our mailing list to receive the latest news, updates and opportunities from our team.

We don't want an impostor using your email address so please look for an email from us and click the link to confirm your email address.