Facebook notches up new user milestones with such regularity it’s easy to forget how fast its business potential is growing.

A year ago, when board member Marc Andreessen came out and predicted the service would reach 1bn users, it sounded like hype. Not so now, with the half-billion figure reached on Wednesday and 1bn widely seen as all but inevitable.

If Facebook’s revenues really are running at the rumoured $1bn a year (and from what we can tell, that number isn’t far off), that means it’s making $2 a year off the average user.

Consider how that compares to other internet companies – and bear in mind that unlike others, Facebook actually has an account relationship with all 500m. Read more