Facebook Status Update

07:45 | Jason Lopez | Feb 9th, 2008 12:01am |

Last October, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook, suddenly placing Facebook’s value at a lofty $15 billion. Now, we see that revenues for 2007 came to around $150 million, while expenses still leave the company with a negative cash flow that could be as high as $150 million next year.

Microsoft’s recent move to acquire Yahoo!, which began with a telephone call from Microsoft CEO Steven A. Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang (a call that Ballmer later claimed was “definitely not a courtesy call”) prompted us to revisit the Facebook/Microsoft relationship - what it means for Facebook, and what Microsoft might have been thinking last Fall.

As Facebook moves to launch versions in Spanish, with more languages coming soon, analysts are looking again at the juggernaut, guessing about whether breaking into languages will erode its power as a single network around the world. Meanwhile, widgets and applications continue to proliferate, and Microsoft’s role in aiding advertising at Facebook continues to be a work in progress.

Forrester Research senior analyst (and former host of PodTech’s own Web Strategy show) Jeremiah Owyang speaks with PodTech’s Jason Lopez about Facebook’s evolving business.