Facebook: 500 million strong and sharing life-changing stories

It's a thin line between love and hate - and Facebook is finding out that its users are truly straddling that line.

This time yesterday, the headlines about Facebook stemmed from a report that put Facebook below the IRS, the airlines and cable companies in terms of customer satisfaction. Its users, it seems, have concerns about their personal privacy, site changes and so on.

But they don't stop coming. And they don't stop sharing.

Facebook said today that the site registered its 500 millionth user, a monstrous milestone that shows that Facebook's growth and momentum are no where near slowing down. Sure, that comes with downsides, such as lawsuits that surface years later to try to take credit for the the site. When you're a big company, you suddenly get a big target on your back.

To celebrate the milestone, Facebook said it is launching an app called Facebook Stories, a place where users can share stories about how Facebook has impacted their lives. The stories are categorized by themes such as crime fighting, Education, parenting, grief or relationships, among others.

Clearly, Facebook has had an impact on our lives, helping us to reconnect with people from our pasts or share in the ups and downs of the lives of people we care about. Even though the customer satisfaction survey hinted that a competitor could come in and unseat Facebook if it offered a more compelling user experience.

As hard as it is to imagine starting over in a new social network, it's also important to note that many people easily jumped from MySpace to Facebook.