Time to Update Those Facebook Revenue Estimates

That Facebook rate card Valleywag published yesterday? It was from February. And, yes, February was eons ago, but who would have suspected that Facebook would have doubled its sponsorship rates in the meantime? Well, it seems they have. Valleywag's Owen Thomas reveals the June rate card.

Let's see, 150 group sponsorships times $300,000 per sponsorship for three months ($1.2 million per year), and you're at $180 million in revenue. And that's before the home page sponsorships. And the $200 million three-year display deal with Microsoft. Etc.

Do clients get discounts off the rate card? Of course. But even with the sponsorship rates set at half of what they apparently are today, director Peter Thiel's $150 million 2007 revenue number looked reasonable. And the more pertinent question is what 2008's revenue number looks like. And 2009's.

MySpace will reportedly do $1 billion in revenue this year, only a year or two after finally getting serious about selling ads. Facebook's sponsorship rates have doubled in 5 months. Google's doing $16 billion in revenue. Is it really so unreasonable to think that Facebook might hit a $1 billion run-rate within a year? In a word, no.

So here are some updated Facebook revenue estimates:

2007: $150 million ($200 million? $250 million? Who cares?)
2008: $750 million
2009: $1.5 billion

Originally Posted at Internet Outsider