How does social networking sites make money?

[piyush b]

how does sites such as facebook and orkut make money

[ryan_duz]

advertisements

[Aub]

Google, or whomever puts up advertisements on each page, sometimes more then 1.

With social networking sites its even better for them, because everyone makes there own page, the more pages the more advertising sites, the more money.

[Keith Brown]

Social networking allows one to join up free and invite his or her friends to join up as well which creates a viral effect on the internet as well as word of mouth advertising. For example, if you just come from just watching a great movie at the theater, the first thing we say, “Boyyyy, that was a cool movie, I especially like the scene where…” We do it all the time subconsciously without thinking about it. That is what you call marketing. And we do it socially with our friends and family. If one wants to improve his or her position in network marketing, social networking is the one of the keys to success. When visitors click on their ads...hehe

[spatil_infotech]

fromm advertisements like "Google Adsense"/Bidvertiser etc...or by placing any other website banner ads..

[fahreeus]

Advertisement mostly. You usually see banners and text-ads on their site. Plus, they can also gain revenue from selling merchandises and premium features.

A new way of making money out of popular sites is to go public, issue shares, and gain more capital to expand.

I have a few social networking site myself. I use them to keep my customers, as a substitute for mailing list. Megastar Media (http://www.megastarmedia.com) built them for me. It has been great in increasing traffic and sales, so I guess bigger sites must make even more money than I do...