Facebook obsession
So Facebook has finally filed its IPO documents and the eight year journey from a Harvard dorm to Menlo Park California now sees the social network valued anywhere between $US70 billion and $US100 billion.
Facebook has filed to raise $US5 billion but that number is subject to change. Leaving that aside for a moment, the real highlight so far has been the numbers released by Facebook with regards to users and revenue.
Facebook has 845 million active users and leveraging that kind of reach could potentially open up a whole new revenue stream for the network.
According to MIT Sloan School of Management Associate Professor of Marketing, Catherine Tucker, Facebook is sitting on a revenue gold mine of social advertising.
Tucker says the view that social network sites are unfruitful venues for paid advertising is wrong and social networks have so far been underrated as a revenue stream. We now know Facebook makes 85 per cent of its revenue from advertising.
Facebook may have just started to scratch the surface with regards to maximising the potential of the data that it holds and as this infographic from Online Schools highlights Facebook users just can't spend enough time on the network and that's a captive audience well worth tapping into.