Facebook is about to announce that they’ve hit 500 million users — a milestone that cements (as if it hadn’t already) the site’s status as one of the web’s biggest successes ever.

Famous rock band Guns N’ Roses released their latest album, Chinese Democracy, in November, 2008. It had been in development for an astonishing 15 years. That’s partially why Kevin Cogill got into so much trouble.

People sure love clobbering virtual snakes. Social gaming powerhouse Zynga has just released the latest stats for its new game FrontierVille , and it’s clear that it’s off to a solid start: around five weeks after launching, the game is now up to 20 million monthly users, with around 6 million Daily Active Users (DAUs). That’s up from 5 million DAUs on June 22 , when the game had around 12 million monthly users

As we’re now less than a day away from Apple’s surprise iPhone 4 press conference , speculation is at a fever pitch. Depending on what you read, Apple is either going to recall the device, offer users to trade it in for a new version, offer free bumpers , offer gift cards, simply explain the problem — or do something else entirely. But now it seems that we may be able to rule out one of those scenarios: the recall

It looks like Twitter’s notification emails that are sent when you have a new follower are getting a much-needed makeover. A search on Twitter has confirmed that the new emails are being rolled out to users. The new emails have a cleaner interface and now include the follower’s location and bio.

You know you’ve got a viral marketing hit on your hands when the CFO of Google mentions it in an earnings call. Yes, I am talking about the Old Spice YouTube Tweetathon where the bare-chested Old Spice Man addresses people on Twitter via personalized commercials on YouTube . At the tail-end of a long, very long, 90-minute earnings call in which I dozed off at least three times, Google CFO Patrick Pichette perked me up when he made a reference to the Old Spice social media marketing campaign

The United Nations Environment Program and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century today reveal in a pair of new reports that despite an overall financial downturn in 2009, global investments in sustainable energy increased worldwide. Core clean energy investments from private and public sources totaled $162 billion: Policies that favor the development of a green economy and businesses in the fields of renewable energy and energy efficiency also increased: more than 100 countries enacted some type of policy target and/or promotion policy related to renewable energy by early 2010. Thirty eight developing nations had policy targets, and 41 developing nations had a policy of promoting renewable energy

Earlier today, we noted that Google SVP Marissa Mayer had written a post responding to suggestions that perhaps the government should regulate Google Search.

During Google’s Q2 2010 earnings call today, one of the things Google’s executives were clearly very excited about was the Android platform. They noted that there are now 70,000 apps in the Android Market — up from 30,000 in April. They also reiterated the company line about how important openness is to the platform.

How much did Google spend to fend off Viacom’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit? On today’s earnings call , CFO Patrick Pichette revealed that Google’s legal bills for the case amounted to $100 million, and that was before it went to trial. The legal bill could have ended up being many times that amount, but last month the judge threw out the case , and Google declared victory