Facebook: Is it worth US$1 billion or maybe more?

Facebook is one name which almost every school-going kid in US would recognize immediately. Started by a group of Harvard sophomores in 2004 (see BusinessWeek's "Facebook's on the Block"), Facebook was initially just college/university based and anyone with a valid school email ID could become member of it. Once you are a member, you can network with your friends and keep in touch with them and general updates in their lives. Within a span of about two and a half years it had grew to over 9 miliion users and over 14.8 million unique visitors in August, 2006 alone. Apart from this it slowly expanded by including high-schools, organizations, companies and under its wings. Then last year it threw itself open for everyone. Today it is second biggest online social-networking website (after myspace.com) and being considered one of the hottest company for a sellout. Website is already profitable and is expected to generate a revenue of more that $100 million this year.

Giants like Google, Microsoft, NewsCorp etc keep an eye on these social networking sites as they give them a unique set of users, not only with a profile but also their network, likes and dislikes etc. This helps companies to generate revenues through advertising. Google bought orkut.com and News Corp bought myspace.com. Friendster is still running independent (after refusing Google's offer) and now there is Facebook, which refused $1 billion offer from Yahoo! last fall. Now the question is: Who will acquire Facebook or maybe will we see another IPO and diversification of Facebook with other content sharing websites like Metacafe, Joost, Digg etc?

Just imagine a website which give you social networking, photo & video sharing, news content, bookmarks and online TV??? Possibilities are unlimited, so are opportunities!