Facebook may still have its issues (note the recent move to help developers get more data from Facebook users and their rather quick retraction of the effort) but it does generate cash. Of course, no one knows exactly how much because Facebook is supposedly a private company (and Goldman Sachs, those lovable, honest, upright guys of Wall Street intend to keep that way by playing fast and loose with securities laws) but there are people out there willing to guesstimate and then make predictions for the future (what would we do without these predictions?!).
The latest comes directly from eMarketer. US social network ad revenues were very good 2010 with 2011 promising to be a whole lot better.
Of course, Facebook accounts for roughly 65% of this spend according to the study so it’s safe to say that if there were no Facebook there would be a lot less hubbub about the industry (or would something else have fulfilled the pent up demand?
Here is eMarketer’s best guess at the year Facebook had and what the future might hold.
Remember how Facebook boldly predicted at one point in their past that they would double revenue projections? Remember how the predicted numbers for 2010 revenue for Facebook just kept rising through out the year? Did Facebook take a lesson from Apple and ‘promote’ ridiculously low targets so they could look like business a business super hero? Mark Zuckerberg and company twisting the truth? Really? That’s just not possible! Face it, with Facebook anything is possible. Oh and by the way, all of this is being done without needing to provide a shred of evidence (except to the chosen few who are made to look like 500 investors by Goldman). Being private has its benefits!
Well, it’s no surprise that Facebook sits on top of this growing heap of ad dollars. What will be most interesting in 2011 is not whether they generate serious ad dollars. They will do that. The bigger stories will be if they do anything in their other business dealings with the likes of Goldman Sachs and their continued privacy gaffes that put a whole in this rapidly rising balloon.
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