A post yesterday on the Entrustet blog suggested that 1.8 million users of Facebook will pass away in 2011. Here at 1000Memories we have our own analysis of users passing on Facebook (based on Federal and Facebook statistics). We anticipate three million users passing on Facebook this year, almost twice as many as cited elsewhere, and over twice as many as in 2010.

Why so many?

Death on Facebook is becoming more common, fast. This is due to two factors:
1. The sheer number of people on Facebook. Almost 1 in 10 people in the world are now on Facebook. And it is a number that has been growing FAST. The site grew by 25% in the second half of 2010 alone. Although grow has been slowing in the US it continues unabated in places such as India.
2. The aging of Facebook. Facebook isn't just getting bigger, it's getting older. The number of Facebook users 55 and over in the US grew almost 10-fold in 2009 and then another 60% in 2010. This has a huge effect on the number of those passing on Facebook as the death rate scales exponentially with age.

Where are we headed?

As Facebook's demographics start to look more like the population as a whole the death rate will rise to be comparable to the national average. In 2015 we estimate there will be 50 million dead users on Facebook (see chart). Here at 1000Memories we are trying to help by changing the way that people are remembered. We want to help all of these digital footprints become part of a new richer way or remembering loved ones, a way that future generations may know them in a way that has never been possible.