Andreessens says Facebook will do over $500 million

Entrepreneur and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen said in an interview with Reuters that Facebook will make $500 million in revenue in 2009. With its growing base of 225 million users, Facebook has publicly suggested that its primary focus will be on expanding its community as opposed to figuring out the most ideal models for revenue generation. Andreessen believes that Facebook has the potential to generate billions of dollars in revenue in coming years.

Facebook itself has not been in the habit of disclosing its revenue, although it has accepted substantial investment from Microsoft and other sources, said Andreessen. Besides, he has revealed that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has invested in Twitter, which plans to generate revenue through tools and business services. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has publicly suggested that advertising will not be the primary focus for the social networking site, which lets its community post 140-character "tweets" about their activities.

The company announced on July 1 it would simplify and standardize its privacy settings, even as the site moved to make its users' profiles more searchable over the Web. The site's six privacy pages and 40 settings will be collected onto a single page, preventing users from unintentionally activating or declining certain access options with regard to their status updates, photo albums and links.

However, the company has also faced periodic uproar this year from users over issues ranging from its homepage redesign to whether the site can retain ownership of users' photos and other content, despite their professed attention to the needs of the community.

In addition, recognizing the site's popularity IT companies such as Omniture have designed applications or sites that utilize Facebook within an enterprise context.