Its official, Facebook's Toronto network just surpassed the 1 million member mark (see screen print below ... I captured it at the moment it hit 1,000,000 just for dramatic effect), and is growing in excess of 1500 new members per day. Toronto is the first city in the world to have this unique distinction. Here are the member numbers for some other significant cities:
New York City - 606,000
Chicago - 462,000
Los Angeles - 384,000
Atlanta - 280,000
Dallas - 235,000
Miami - 118,000
As was referred to in a Toronto Star article last week, 1 in 4 Canadians have an account on Facebook. Facebook appears to be another of Canada's unique cultural trademarks ... in addition to Tim Hortons, hockey, backbacon, touques, and the word 'eh'.
What else are we supposed to during the 6+ months of winter? Suppose that's why you see cities in the north with higher Facebook network numbers than cities in the south.
In any case, it does mean that Facebook is a considerably more attractive option for specifically targeting Canadians, than it is in many other countries of the world.
Perhaps the Toronto network will reach 2 million before any others reach 1 million. Time will tell!
The current population of Toronto is 2.48 Million. Factor out kids and teens that are 17 and younger and you have everyone in Toronto plus another few people on Facebook. Either Facebook is loaded with fake accounts in Toronto or they have one major hiccup there. The entire surrounding area by the way. Also the Greater Toronto figures
still wouldn’t make sense for Facebook’s figures.
http://www.toronto.ca/toronto_facts/diversity.htm
This reminds me of the supposedly great Facebook advertising platform. I don’t mean in the past that little glitch that people got away with, I’m talking about advertising on Facebook with all of their great numbers seems to yield the worst ROI of any major site. I lost 40K just testing a few campaigns with them, one before Microsoft’s involvement and one after. It will be a long time before I pay Facebook any attention.