Facebook has said it expects to announce its 500-millionth user this week and will mark the occasion with something called “Facebook Stories.

Facebook spokesperson Randi Zuckerberg said that, “As we anticipated our 500-million milestone, we wanted to find a different way to announce and celebrate it. In the past, it's been all about the numbers and milestones, and we realised we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users.

To celebrate the milestone a Facebook Stories microsite will showcase the different kinds of user that have joined the social network over the years.

The stories will be organised by geographical location and themes such as love, grief and natural disasters.

“We really think by surfacing these stories, users can explain what Facebook is a lot better than we can,” Zuckerberg told All Things Digital.

Yesterday the second clip for the Facebook movie was released.