...or, maybe they don't want to get stuck on the wrong side of a Form 10 filing requirement because of poor stock administration (and decided to be smart about this)...BTW, if they do their $100 million this year, I think that they will have faster revenue growth than Google (measured from inception)

Just figured out why I'm not a trillionaire: it's because I don't get it. Youtube, I get: good/easy technology that lets people do things they were too lazy or stupid to do before, like uploading video to the web without converting or doing anything, and having it play in anybody's browser without downloading a player. iPod, sure: looks cool, feels cool, intuitive interface, never been done on an mp3 player before, reliable/all-encompassing library of known-quality mp3s without spyware. But Facebook, MySpace, I don't get it: personalize a webpage template and exchange links, I mean friendships, with people. And that's worth a billion $? Somebody tell me what I'm missing.

Here are a few things you're missing:
- People love to talk about themselves. (Me included.)
- People want a feeling of belonging to a community. Yes, many real communities exist. I am able to be better connected with people that I wouldn't otherwise be in touch with.
- Email today is a disaster. With all the spams, scams and other nasties, the closed environment on Facebook is a godsend. You're much more likely to actually reach me through a comment on my blog or a Facebook message than by email.
- User-generated content makes for a great business. It doesn't cost you anything to generate and each user comes with at least 1 or 2 fans.
- Because Facebook is (to a larger extent) based on real world connections and has much less anonymity, you get much more civility than you do elsewhere.

Plus, what you're seeing today is just a small piece of what will happen. I can think of lots of great things to do with that user base.

BTW, according to their blog they hit 30MM users today.

30 million? Crud - my blog has less than 10,000 subscribers. Actually, less than 100, but "less than 10,000" sounds better and is still true, so we'll go with that. I can sense your enthusiasm and the numbers obviously demonstrate that there's something there. Guess I was questioning "why MySpace" and "why Facebook" rather than "why social networking", but the hows and whys of that query are for the network theorists to figure out, I suppose. Speaking of, why isn't Albert-Laszlo Barabasi a trillionaire? Google ought to pay him a few million plus everything he needs and bring him in-house to keep trying to figure out those very hows and whys.

Worth: I think the 'value' lies in capturing potential customers (of the digital native type or even the digital naturalised citizen type) early and then trying to flog them things later. One minor thing flogged on Facebook is $1 'gifts' which are basically pictures of a flower, a monkey etc which people send their 'friends'. If 2% of 30M buy this $1 gift, say twice a year, that is a revenue of $1.2M from something that is virtual and probably cost 1cent to make and can be turned over millions of times.

Apparently there is also a 'class divide' between networks, with Facebook being more well-off than MySpace. (See: http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html). That is a differentiator for Facebook. However apparently now 40% of Facebook users are 'old' i.e. over 18-22 years of age. (See: http://www.adrants.com/2007/07/old-people-swarm-facebook-overtake-colleg.php) Too bad for the youngsters, but the oldies usually have more money (as a mature student on Facebook, I can testify to that although to make me pay $1 for some crappy image is a bit harder...). So the path to value is not conventional but it is more like if you collect them, they will buy.

The community interacts mostly with trivia (in my experience) but more and more academics are now 'friends' of their students. Its effect on the academics' student feedback rating and then the academics' promotions and career trajectories is less easy to quantify than those (dumb) 'gifts'.

I think to get the flavour of Facebook, sign up and see for yourself :-) It is a great time-waster.

Oh and several tens of 3rd party developers are already making plug-ins. So there is one for Shelfari and one for PhD comics and so on... I am sure there is licensing money being made somewhere or will be made somewhere. After all you could make many arguments about whether or not Shelfari has a value proposition. But then again, I have to go update the status on Facebook, so toodle-pips!

Paul Kedrosky for President in 2012!!!!

I fully agree with your insightful perspective, actually there is a similar thread at Frontier Blog
( http://www.hwswworld.com/wp )

I don't see Facebook going IPO in the near future. I'm sure the stock administration has to do with how they decided to capitalize their company and juggling of all the debt instruments.

In the last organization I worked for it was a pain because of the myriad of debt instruments that were used to fund the company made it a huge task to raise more funding with each round.

That said I don't know the details of the Facebook financin deals nor am privy to their stock plans.

Anyway, the reason I can see an IPO is because of Mark Zuckerburgs vision for his company. There is a reason he didn't sell to Google. There is a reason he is so passionate when you hear him speak. He sees his company as an evangalist of fair and unbiased communication. A method of interaction uncorrupted, unlike radio, television, the papers, or the Internet (which is becoming more and more dominated by large companies).

Anyway, good luck to the company if they go IPO. Hopefully they are able to more efficiently monetize their technology, service, and advertising.

I expanded on my comments above (#3) in my blog post Why we love social networks.