On Wednesday, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg introduced a new application called Facebook Places that allows users to document places that they have been. Cool. It should be a popular feature on the world's most popular social media site.Pardon, not just social media. Facebook is poised to becoming the most popular place on the world wide web, period.
For the month of July, Google had 3.161 billion visits. Check this, Facebook had an astonishing 3.152 billion visits. eMarketer estimates that the popular social networking site will rake in over $1.3 billion in revenue for 2010, almost double the $665 million it brought in last year.
The site's staggering growth is fueling speculations that Facebook will go public by way of an IPO sometime in 2012. That's speculation, but the site has institutional investors. One thing we know about investors, the final objective is harvest.
Bloomberg recently valued Facebook at $24.9 billion, using data from two private exchanges where investors can place positions in venture-backed companies.
The site has become a global phenomenon, and earlier this year, it surpassed the 500 million user mark. A big chunk of the world's population uses the site as a place to connect.
There are also expectations of $1.8 billion in revenue for 2011, based on estimates of between 600 to 700 million users.
Facebook is not just a popular online site. It's staggering growth makes it a bona fide powerhouse. An interesting question is, will Mark Zuckerberg keep user's experience as a friendly and homely one?
Or will pressures to monetize this most valuable of web properties commercialize the site to such an extent, that friendlier, homelier competitors can snatch the initiative?
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