Facebook Tops 100 Million Users — and Endures a Revolt Over Its Redesign

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Facebook said this week it has passed 100 million active users, a milestone reached four years after Mark Zuckerberg founded the site in a Harvard dorm — even as a vocal chunk of those users protests the site's sweeping redesign.

The new design, being rolled out gradually, reorganizes profiles around the "wall" stream of updates. Petition groups with names like "1,000,000 Against the New Facebook" have sprouted — inside Facebook itself, naturally.

The company has been here before: the 2006 launch of the News Feed drew hundreds of thousands of protesters, and the Beacon advertising system became a public-relations disaster last winter before Zuckerberg apologized.

"Every time we change something, people storm the castle, and then the new thing becomes the thing they defend," a company executive said. "We listen, we adjust, we move on."

The growth remains staggering: Facebook says its fastest gains are now outside the United States, and it recently passed MySpace in worldwide visitors, though MySpace still leads domestically.

Rumors of acquisition talks — with Microsoft, with everyone — continue to circulate. Zuckerberg, 24, insists the company will remain independent and is aiming at a public offering, someday.

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Associated Press writers contributed to this report.

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