As Facebook announced that it had reached 500 million active users earlier this week, Buddy Media celebrated an accomplishment of its own that complemented this astronomical milestone. No, we didn’t create our own social network larger than the population of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. But we did put the Buddy Media Platform to the test to reach users faster than has ever been done before.

How, might you ask? Well, you may have tuned in to Diane Sawyer’s interview with Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday night, but did you realize that at the same time, fans were chatting about it in real-time on the World News with Diane Sawyer Facebook Page? Using a Live Chat widget, the Buddy Media Platform made it possible for users to discuss the content they were watching on television directly on the Facebook page as the program aired.

While a huge congratulations goes out to Zuckerberg and the Facebook team, Buddy Media is beyond psyched to recognize just how quickly and easily we can update and change any existing page that lives on our Platform. Think about it, with a just a brief window of time to prepare for the interview, we redesigned the layout of the ABC World News Facebook tab and added new sapplets to coincide with the interview and the real-time chat feature. That’s huge!  It all shows how easy it is to update a Page using the Platform to support last-minute initiatives or campaigns.

Considering the plethora of other Pages we’ve developed and launched for ABC, including ABC News, The View, General Hospital, One Life to Live, All My Children, Pretty Little Liars and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, the possibilities on the Buddy Media Platform are endless. So, maybe we haven’t built our own social media empire, but the potential capabilities with the Buddy Media Platform are certainly a few big steps in the right direction for viral brand marketing.