Money Matters, Simplified.
Facebook reports growth in users, positive cash flows
by Jaspreet Virk - September 16, 2009 - comments
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone”
New York, September 16: Re-emphasizing its growing popularity, Facebook Inc., the world's largest social networking site, Tuesday announced it has reached 300-million-user mark, up from 150 million at the start of this year.
Facebook has added 50 million users since July, when the company had hit 250-million-user mark.
"This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.”
Positive cash flow
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also revealed that it has started making money for the first time since its inception in a Harvard dorm room nearly six years ago.
Facebook added that it has become positive cash flow ahead of schedule as the company had expected to hit that milestone somewhere in 2010.
Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's vice president of engineering, was quoted by BBC News as saying, "Passing these milestones to me means we can continue to fund our development and our innovation and be self sustaining as we grow this network."
He added that the growth of the network has helped them churn profits and the engineering team has done a lot of innovation on ad products to generate revenues. The company did not disclose its revenue.
Facebook is valued at $10 billion after a $200 million investment from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies in May this year.
Facebook exploring avenues to upgrade services
Recently, Facebook has added a few new features, Tagging and Facebook Lite, to its site.
Tagging allows users to tag friends in their posts and status updates by using the @ symbol, before the name of the person to be tagged. This feature is similar to the Twitter feature called ‘Reply’.
Facebook Lite is a slimmed down new version of Facebook. It is simpler, lacks clutter on the main Facebook pages, and is designed for users with slower Internet connections.
"If Facebook continues to open up its platform and adopt Twitter's best features, it could spell trouble for the Twitterverse. The world's largest social network is on the warpath," said Ben Parr, associate editor at the social media blog Mashable.com.
Facebook is likely to launch a service soon that will allow users to engage in voice chat by adding a voice channel feature on their Facebook page.
“It's a simple browser plug-in. You can invite as many friends as you want to the channel," said company spokeswoman Karen Blondell.