Is There Anywhere Else for Facebook to Go?

Now that Facebook has gone public, there’s lots of eyes on the company. Can it innovate in any other way to continue its unprecedented success?

The short answer is yes. Will Facebook continue to avoid the bubble-bursting that some techies are predicting? Only time will tell. But the prolific ‘f’ continues to snake its tentacles out into new territory.

The internet juggernaut filed for a $5 billion IPO on February 1, and in doing so, it revealed some staggering company details.

The company reported revenues of $3.7 billion in 2011, which is a whopping 88% more than it reported in 2010. $1 billion of that revenue was profit, which beat Google’s total revenue when it first hit the public market. Advertising makes up 85% of that money.

Facebook also revealed impressive stats about its user base. Of its 845 million members, about 483 million of them have made Facebook a daily stop. Combined, these users have shared over 100 petabytes (100 quadrillion bytes) of videos and photos, with an average of 2.7 billion “likes” and comments per day as of December, 2011.

It’s long-distance friends keeping in touch. It’s big families keeping up with each other because it’s hard to get everyone together frequently. It’s celebrities and the flocks who love them. It’s businesses large and small looking to grow their own numbers riding on the back of a giant.

According to web training firm NetConsultCo.com, it’s now easier than ever for businesses to expand their social media exposure. As the company recently wrote on a blog, “these days, it is very important to have a web presence. And using social media sites is an easy and inexpensive way to do this.”

Let’s face it: with 85% of their money coming from advertising, Facebook is as much a marketing outlet as it is a social media network – if not more so. The Facebook Shopping Mall is gaining momentum. The company’s next big move appears to be the mobile market. Facebook recently announced intentions to explore the inclusion of ads or sponsored stories on its mobile apps and mobile website.

As the company stated in their recent S-1 filing, “Improving our mobile products and increasing mobile usage of Facebook are key company priorities that we believe are critical to help us maintain and grow our user base and engagement over the long term.”

Many mobile devices are getting designed with Facebook in mind, so it’s only natural that speculation abound regarding whether or not the internet beast will ever decide to take a bite out of the cell phone market and design their own brand of Facebook phone.

As stated earlier: only time will tell.