Happy Halloween: Facebook's Busiest Day. Send Us Pictures!
It's the busiest time of the year for photo uploads on Facebook.
Oct. 31, 2011 — -- If you thought Halloween was scary, just wait until the day after.
Facebook tells us Nov. 1 is generally its heaviest day of the year for photograph uploads -- all those pictures of people at Halloween parties, or of their children dressed as skeletons, princesses and reincarnations of Elvis. The company says 1.2 billion pictures were posted last year on Halloween and the day after; no saying yet how many there will be this year.
"We see significant spikes among all age groups, not just teenagers or college students," said a Facebook spokesman in an email. "If you do a public search for Halloween photos you see a wide range of pictures being shared."
Being popular is tough. You can imagine Facebook's servers -- the massive banks of computers that keep the website running -- beginning to melt under the load. Little wonder they just announced they're building a new server farm in northern Sweden, just south of the Arctic Circle. They'll use the frigid climate to keep the servers there from overheating.
We can presume that many of the pictures uploaded tonight or tomorrow morning will be funny, or charming, or otherwise harmless. Countless millions will be underexposed or out of focus. And an unfortunate few will be -- well, do you really want future bosses to see what you looked like as a belly dancer or a spoof of their favorite presidential candidates?
If you have a Halloween picture you like, and you'd like to share it with the world, our editors invite you to send it to the ABC "World News" mailform (which you'll find HERE). We hope to show a selection on "World News" this evening.
