Growing internet penetration and a large youth population has helped world’s largest social network platform Facebook expand its userbase in India to 112 million — the second largest after the US.US-based Facebook, which had about 100 million users in April this year, saw its monthly active users (MAUs) base touching 112 million at the end of September. The number of daily active users (DAUs) from India now stands at 52 million. Globally, the company has 1.35 billion users, while the number of daily active users now stands at 864 million.
India has the largest user base outside of the US for Facebook. ”We have seen tremendous growth from across regions. There is still a huge market opportunity to tap into. We are engaging actively with our users and partners (brands, advertisers etc) on how can their experience on the platform be enhanced further,” Facebook India Managing Director Kirthiga Reddy told PTI.
Interestingly, of the 112 million userbase in India, about 99 million users are using the platform through their mobile phones at least once a month. About 45 million users in India are using their mobile phones every day to connect with their friends on Facebook. Facebook has also conducted a study titled ‘Coming of Age on Screens’, which aims to understand people’s attitudes and behaviour both online and offline. The study found that 77 percent of the users in the 13-24 years age group agreed that they can’t leave their house without their mobile, while 63 percent agreed that they would prefer to give up their TV for their mobile phone.
“Another interesting finding that emerged was that youth today use an average of four devices and often use multiple screens in the evening, especially while watching TV,” Reddy said. They suffer from FOBO (Fear Of Being Offline) with 77 percent respondents saying they like to be connected to the Internet wherever they are, she added. ”Social media is the first place this group would turn to share a photo of themselves (41 percent), a funny video or joke (37 percent), an interesting news article (32 percent) and a random observation (24 percent) — ranking ahead of face-to-face, text, email and other means of communications,” she said. Reddy said the study will help advertisers understand this young group better in terms of how do they connect and the role of technology and different digital platforms in the lives of youth.

Facebook has launched a new feature wherein the photos that people post from their phones would be enhanced by default with the app adjusting lighting, shadows and general clarity.However, only iPhone users would be able to see the upgrade on their phones as of now. The changes that the app makes can also be removed from the photo or enhanced further. According to The Verge, Android will soon be updated with the feature wherein the operating system’s users would be able to see the default photo enhancer.
Facebook is reportedly not bringing the feature to desktop and seems interested in only improving the quality of the users’ poorly shot mobile photos.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has rejected Tim Cook’s claim that ads turn customers into products, saying that it was a “ ridiculous concept”.According to The Verge, Zuckerberg was apparently irritated by the claim that ad supported services are bad for users. Zuckerberg said that he was frustrated about people equating an advertising business model with being out of alignment with your customers, reported the Verge.
Zuckerberg was referring to comments made by Cook in September at the time when Cook defended Apple’s approach to security after hundreds of nude and private images of celebrities were stolen from iCloud. Zuckerberg said that his company’s mission was to connect with everyone in the world and that it cannot be done by making people pay for a service.

The latest update to the Facebook app for iOS adds an interesting feature: users can post content to the social network even when their device is offline or in flight mode. Their posts will upload automatically once a data network connection becomes available. 
The new feature, which means that iOS users can now post to Facebook from anywhere, should also be available in the near future for Android and Windows Phone users. Facebook also announced that the update means that the news feed loads more quickly, particularly on older iPhone and iPad models. The Facebook app for iOS is available for download at the App Store.