What does it mean when Facebook says it has 901 million monthly active users on its network? According to figures out from the International Telecommunication Union, it effectively signifies that Facebook is the world’s largest social network by a very long shot. The ITU says in a new report that that the number of people using all social media services have passed the 1 billion mark.

Livebookings , the restaurant booking and marketing service that competes with services like OpenTable, is announcing today that it has picked up another $24 million (£15 million) in funding to continue growing its business in Europe and beyond. The news highlights two trends we’ve seen emerging recently around here: companies dedicated to eating out are not going hungry in the current economic climate; and the more local, European counterparts to U.S.-based tech companies are getting a lot of attention from investors and consumers

Editor’s note: Andy Hickl is the co-founder and CEO of A.R.O ., a stealth mode Seattle startup. He previously served as CEO and chief scientist of Language Computer Corporation and as co-founder and CEO of Swingly. Follow him on Twitter @andyhickl

Editor’s note: Guest author  Keith Teare  is General Partner at his incubator  Archimedes Labs  and CEO of just.me . He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Follow him on Twitter @kteare

Editor’s note : Tim Chang is a managing director at Mayfield Fund .

Video application Socialcam vaulted to the No. 1 position on our  AppData charts  after gaining 40 million monthly active Facebook-connected users in two weeks.

Dave McClure’s 500 Startups crew is at it again, with another group of companies joining its Accelerator program. The fourth group of startups in the 500 Startups Accelerator follows a lot of the same trends from previous participants, as McClure & Co

AOL reported first quarter earnings this morning, which saw it posting higher revenues than expected by analysts, with $529.4 million in revenue during the quarter, beating the $527 million consensus.

Facebook is collecting data on its latest ad units by asking for direct user feedback through the question, “Which of the above ads do you prefer?” We saw Facebook conducting similar research in February 2011 among users in Israel. This was before the rise of Sponsored Stories and ads that come from page posts, as seen to the right. Now some U.S

This post is co-written with Daniel Cunha , my partner at Initial Capital . Initial Capital was launched in 2011 as an investment firm targeting early stage startups in Israel and Brazil.