You could be forgiven for thinking that Mark Zuckerberg created a monster with Facebook. After all, half a billion strong user base is huge even by Google's or Microsoft's standards. But the thing is, only one in fourteen people on planet Earth are using the service so there's plenty of room for healthy growth in the years ahead. And I bet you didn't know that senior citizens comprise the fastest growing age group on Facebook. That's right, you can soon expect your mom to friend you on Facebook, if she hasn't yet.

But wait, there's more from where Candytech comes from (and that's Czechoslovakia). This market research firm that helps companies create and measure Facebook marketing campaigns is sitting atop a wealth of data about usage patterns of the Facebook nation. The company has been analyizing and publishing interesting tidbits on its statistics portal SocialBakers for some time, but now they've mined all this valuable data and pulled the most interesting pieces of information that help put Facebook's astounding growth into meaningful perspective.

And to illustrate hard numbers, what better way than a beautiful, easily digestible infographic? Impatient types should immediately scroll down and check it out. Your key takeaways include the following data points:

• in 2010, Facebook's user base exploded from 337 million users to 585 million people - a 74 percent increase in just twelve months, mind you
• nevertheless, that's still only 8.33 percent of the seven billion Earthlings that inhabit this planet
• nearly eight users per second were signing up throughout whole 2010
• ten countries account for 58.5 percent of all Facebook population
• top three countries are United States (147 million), United Kingdom (28.4 million) and - you'll never guess - Indonesia (32.1 million)
• old people (65+), not teenagers, represent the fastest growing group (up 124 percent), followed by kids aged 13-15 (up 82 percent)
• the vast majority of Facebook users are between 18 and 34 years old
• top five brands on Facebook: Coca-Cola, Starbuck, Oreo, Disney and Red Bull
• Michael Jackson commands 26.2 million Facebook fans, making him the most popular celebrity on the social network; he is followed by omnipresent Lady Gaga, rapper Eminem, r'n'b artist Rihanna and actress Megan Foxx
• Justin Bieber is no longer number one public figure on Facebook - the Canadian teen sensation has dropped to the ninth slot, ahead of Barack Obama