Twitter Expects To Reach 1 Billion Users

Twitter, currently the world's third largest social network, expects to reach 1 billion users, site co-founder Evan Williams told attendees of a San Francisco conference on Monday.

Williams did not, however, provide any timeframe for when the microblogging site -- which has fewer account holders than Facebook and MySpace -- will hit this number. After reporting in July it has 500 million active account holders, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed Facebook would reach 1 billion members.

It could be a while before Twitter arrives at that ambitious mark, based on the most recent statistics from Google Adplanner. Today, Twitter has 98 million users, according to the third-quarter social media update, up only 2 million, or 2.08%, from the prior quarter. In the first quarter of 2010, Twitter had 80 million users, and grew to 96 million users by the end of the second quarter, Google Adplanner found. There are more than 165 million registered users, according to Twitter.

"Twitter will get to a billion members," Evan Williams, Twitter's co-founder and former CEO said at an event at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco when asked about Facebook's target for customers.

These members will not necessarily be the same people who open up a Facebook account, he said. Twitter signs up more people each week than the entire population of his home state of Nebraska, said Williams, estimating that figure at about 1.8 million every week.

Twitter users send more than 100 million tweets daily. The company has expanded its promoted tweets and promoted trends advertising services to more businesses. Coca-Cola and Virgin were among the early adopters who beta-tested the program.

Co-founder Biz Stone joined Williams onstage at the event, and discussed Twitter's new design which debuted last month.