Here’s a copy of my blog post from over at Engauge:

February 2004, six-and-a-half years ago: A small, unknown, self-startup website is born within the confines of Harvard.

Today: That network’s presence seeps into almost every website, every search engine, and every bookmarks bar.

Facebook’s initial presence at Harvard spread to nearby colleges, eventually growing to encompass all universities before consuming high school populations, as well. Launched from a small corner of the Internet, this social networking powerhouse is now nearly inescapable.

This summer, Facebook is set to hit the 500 million users milestone, and an official announcement is expected from them this week.

Other social networking sites trail behind the Facebook giant. QZone, a mainland China networking site, hosts 200 million users (as of 2009). MySpace today lags even further with 130 million, and the newer, popular Twitter still only has 75 million.

Facebook’s userbase is larger than most countries’ populations. Here in the United States, the latest census reports 307,006,550 – nearly 200 million less than the ranks of Facebook users.

In trying to estimate the importance of social media’s role in today’s society, the ever-increasing strength of Facebook is a testament to the outreach of technological engagement.

What do you think about Facebook’s latest triumph?