Andreessen: Facebook revenue to top $500 million in '09
Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who just launched a new venture fund, said in an interview with Reuters (published Monday) that he expects the company's revenue to be in excess of $500 million in 2009, and that in five years it'll be well into the billions.
"Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake," he told Reuters regarding the fact that since an initial public offering is still a ways off, Facebook is permitting some employee stock sales to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian firm that invested $200 million in the site in May. Andreessen himself is not a personal investor in Facebook, and said that "I probably could have if I had tried hard but I didn't."
If Facebook worked the ad-sales front a bit harder, Andreessen added in the interview, revenue could already be over a billion.
But Facebook has never taken kindly to traditional display advertisements, choosing instead to experiment with "engagement ads" integrated into the social-networking experience--a product it may potentially extend into Facebook Connect's participating sites, which now number over 10,000.
Additionally, Facebook has been working toward an alternative revenue stream with its "credits" system, a virtual currency that for now is restricted to the company's in-house "Gifts" application. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the Facebook currency system will be made available to developers using the social network's API, which could produce a significant new source of revenue for Facebook as it takes a cut of transactions.
Andreessen--the Netscape founder and Silicon Valley mainstay whose current projects include social-network builder Ning--has been on Facebook's board for just over a year. He joined at the personal request of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said at the time that "Marc is an industry leader, and we're fortunate to have him join our board."
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
getting front page news status on google news page.
~Brandon C
This is from 2.1 under Terms: (7/6/2009 1:50PM)
For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account (except to the extent your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it).
How is it possible they could make that much?
[Cue Twilight Zone music...]
in your underpants if they could!
18 months from now there will be write-ups that mention, barely in passing, the failed currency attempt. Facebook will quietly scale it down in that time. Facebook will have to come up with a new form of revenue generation that optimizes what its network does well, rather than just thinking they can clone other successful efforts because they have 200m users.
- by Alex_SV July 10, 2009 7:05 PM PDT
- $500 revenue ... hmm ... now I am curious about FB's gross profit margin.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(16 Comments)