Could facebook become a trillion dollar company?

[William M]

Is it possible that facebook could become a trillion dollar company one day, and how could they do it? Please give me all the details for best answer.

[Steve B]

First you have to discover exactly WHAT is Facebook 'selling' ... then you have to decide how easy (or difficult) it is for other companies to get in on the act ....

As far as I can discover, Facebook is a 'social networking' site and their ONLY product (i.e. what they can sell) is advertising space.

There is no real barrier to entry in this market and their advertising (and profits) will evaporate as soon as their popularity (number of users) drops and the competition (Twitter, MySpace, YouTube etc etc etc) rises...

There is also the risk that real companies employing real workers to make real products will be more draconian about blocking such sites and maybe even start to sack employees who waste company time 'social networking' instead of company working :-)

In theory they could try charging their 'members' ... however the last 'social networking' site to try that was Friends Reunited ...

So, if you ask me, all 'social networking' sites are equivalent to the free newspapers you see littering the floors of the London Underground every evening ......