How is facebook profitable

[cloud]

?

[A Schnitzel]

Once in a while a member will accidently let their credit card information slip by entering it into the spot for their phone number.

[PeaceBaby]

It's not.

[simulatedworld]

^ Yes, it is. It's a multi-billion dollar company, entirely through advertising.

[professor goodstain]

The same reason i sit on my ass and collect the goods on someone for those jealous types out there in return for cold hard cash baby. Yah. The owner of facebook is a rich bastard and is still stalking chicks after loosing interest in the girl that motivated the whole idea. I guess stalking can be addicting.

Good Lord that reads like some INTP/c goods.

[EJCC]

Do you mean profitable for Facebook users or for the biznatches in charge?

[Beat]

^ Yes, it is. It's a multi-billion dollar company, entirely through advertising.
+1

My good friend has actually recently gotten involved in marketing on Facebook.

[Mort Belfry]

What's facebook?

[bananatrombones]

What's facebook?

Dunno. I haven't the faintest idea what they're babbling on about.:huh:

[ajblaise]

Facebook has a pay-per-click advertising program, I joined it, but it's very hard to get them to accept campaigns and is overpriced. Adwords and MSN Adcenter is better.

[sunset5678]

In some ways I like myspace/facebook etc type things, but in others I think
people are really becomming too dependent on them and need a reality che-
ck...I get so tired of the old "Hey how are you doing? Look me up on myspa-
ce" lines when I run into people if it takes you a while to find them they ask
every time you see them but when you finally find them they don't reply to
nothing or send you anything even though they tell you to send them stuff...
I'm tired of people that play both ends down the middle and think its o.k to
lead people on like that you're interested in getting back in touch that really
hurts.

[PeaceBaby]

^ Yes, it is. It's a multi-billion dollar company, entirely through advertising.

Came across this thread again today. To reiterate, no, FB is not (yet) profitable.

A company valuation is not the same as profitability. Things are much more hush-hush around FB these days in regard to actual profits. And they fired their CFO (http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/03/facebook_ousts.html) in March.

Here's what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month:

"Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year."

[Athenian200]

?

Advertisements, obviously.

[rhinosaur]

I wouldn't be surprised if, in addition to advertisements, they also sold user information to third parties.

[Athenian200]

I wouldn't be surprised if, in addition to advertisements, they also sold user information to third parties.

Isn't that illegal?

[PeaceBaby]

Revenue is advertising-based.

[rhinosaur]

Isn't that illegal?

No... I don't mean information like "Rhinosaur lives at 456 Home St., phone number 234-4567" but more like "45.3% of people prefer Suave over Pert Plus" kind of information.

Their privacy policy doesn't really go there, though. This is all I found, and it's not much, which is somewhat of a relief:

Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you Facebook. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they're more likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a similar one in your town. But we don't tell the movie company who you are.

[snip]

We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our business, such as to host the service at a co-location facility for servers, to send out email updates about Facebook, to remove repetitive information from our user lists, to process payments for products or services, to offer an online job application process, or to provide search results or links (including sponsored links). In connection with these offerings and business operations, our service providers may have access to your personal information for use for a limited time in connection with these business activities. Where we utilize third parties for the processing of any personal information, we implement reasonable contractual and technical protections limiting the use of that information to the Facebook-specified purposes.

[Shaula]

No... I don't mean information like "Rhinosaur lives at 456 Home St., phone number 234-4567" but more like "45.3% of people prefer Suave over Pert Plus" kind of information.
Yeah, they do collect a lot of statistics, even if informally.

I'm curious to know how much money they've duped out of people who are willing to pay $1.00 each for their 'gifts'.

[The Decline]

So it comes down to:

- Ad revenue
- Marketing information taken from users
- e-gift shops

Well, Google wouldn't be the monolith it is today without ads, I can tell you that much.