Facebook Turns a Profit, Users Hits 300 Million

So much for half-baked rumors of a Facebook exodus. Facebook has turned a profit for the first time since Mark Zuckerberg founded the company in a Harvard dorm room five years ago. How exactly? Reports say the money comes from applications sold through the website and online advertising. That's weird, because when I look at the column of ads next to my Facebook profile it's basically thumbnails of dudes asking me to turn my face into a cartoon. "Cartoonize yourself" to profit? Whatever works, Zuck.

Oh, this seems the be the key: Users have tripled to 300 million in the last year. That's a lot of moms.

A public offering could still be a few years away, but this is huge news. In May 2009, Facebook was valued at $6.5 billion when it received a $200 million investment from a Russian investment firm. By comparison, the last fund-raising round for Twitter valued the comapany at $1 billion. It should be cautioned, however, that the value of social media sites can fluctuate pretty wildly. Three years ago, MySpace was valued as highly as $20 billion. Today it's considered an albatross around the neck of News Corp.

That said, I don't think Facebook is on the MySpace path to social media pariah. If anything, it's only taken its baby steps along the winding road toward world domination.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/09/facebook-turns-a-profit-users-hits-300-million/26721/