Within the next several days, Facebook (News - Alert) will celebrate its enormous member count of 500 million users. In celebration of this achievement, the social media giant will launch Facebook Stories, a website with postings of real-life stories from regular folks whose lives have been changed by Facebook.

In an interview with Randi Zuckerberg, head of marketing for Facebook, she stated, “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 realized we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users,” as reported by Kara Swisher for All Things Digital’s Boomtown blog.

Facebook has been collecting users’ stories over the years as the social media forum has expanded exponentially, and it will release the archive in a “visual memorial” of those users whose lives have been genuinely and positively impacted by Facebook. Facebook Stories will “have two views–organized by geographical location and by theme, such as ‘finding love,’ ‘coping with grief’ and ‘natural disasters.’”

With the launch, the website will host 200 stories that the Facebook team has gathered from various users. Eventually, any user will be able to contribute to the site, telling a story within 420 characters and will be able to link it back to its profile.

As yet another way to individualize and customize your profile on Facebook, Facebook Stories may exemplify how personal and influential social media has become.