Facebook board member Marc Andreessen stated in an interview with Reuters that he expects the company to generate revenue of $500m in 2009, and that in five years it could well be into billions.
If they pushed the throttle forward on monetisation they would be doing more than a billion this year, said Andreessen to Reuters. But he also opined that social sites like Facebook and Twitter should focus on retaining and growing user bases, at this point, instead of engaging much into money making.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook has already suggested publicly that the company’s primary focus is expansion of its community and not figuring out revenue generation models.
Being in line with his statement, Facebook chose to experiment with engagement ads, as opposed to traditional display ads, embedded into its social-networking experience – which could be extended into Facebook Connect’s participating sites later.
Recognising the site’s growth, few IT companies have designed applications or sites that use Facebook within an enterprise context.
Andreessen said: Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake.
