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Facebook may pull in an excess of $1 billion in revenues, according to estimates and poking around on behalf of industry blog Inside Facebook. That's an increase from the same publication's estimate of $700 million last year.

Facebook board member Marc Andreessen said last year that he projected the company would break $500 million revenue in 2009, and that it had the potential to be a billion-dollar company already, but that it was acting conservatively.

(Naturally, Facebook says that as a privately held company it doesn't disclose its financials.)

What can Facebook credit this big jump in … Read more

There's a scene in the 1989 comedy "Troop Beverly Hills" in which rival bands of Wilderness Girls attempt to best one another in a fundraiser by selling boxes of the same cookies to the households of a single upper-crust neighborhood--and unfortunately for the underdog protagonists, their arch-enemies have beaten them to the punch at just about every house. That's what it may soon look like for the explosion of companies offering ultra-discounted, fire-sale daily deals for local businesses, which have fast become the Web's latest retail craze.

Here's how it works. You'll sign … Read more

On Saturday, the crew of a Southwest Airlines flight between the California cities of Oakland and Burbank asked a passenger to leave the plane before takeoff because it deemed him too overweight to fly. Unfortunately, that passenger happened to be Clerks and Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith, who has more than 1.5 million Twitter followers and was willing to make sure that they all heard all about it.

"Dear @SouthwestAir - I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?" Smith asked in a heavily quoted tweet … Read more

You don't even have to ask: Of course she has a pink laptop.

Earlier on Friday, toymaker Mattel announced the results of an online contest to name the profession that the latest edition of Barbie dolls would have, and ultimately two were named: alongside "News Anchor" was the popular-vote winner, "Computer Engineer Barbie." Yes, she has a Bluetooth headset, a pink laptop, a smartphone, and hot-pink glasses. Oh, and she wears sparkly black leggings and a neon green shirt patterned with binary code, the sort of outfit that was probably only acceptable among Burning Man attendees in the late 1990s who liked to talk about "cyberspace." Actually, judging by that outfit, a Pets.com sock puppet would make a great accessory for the new doll.

According to a release from Mattel, the unveiling of Computer Engineer Barbie--she'll hit stores this fall--coincides with "a year-long, global brand initiative to inspire girls of all ages." The social-media-centric "I Can Be" poll that pitted Computer Engineer and News Anchor alongside Surgeon, Architect, and Environmentalist (over half a million votes were cast) is a big part of some image repair for the iconic doll, which has often been decked by feminists for promoting unhealthy body image, materialism, conformity, and the pigeonholing of women into traditional roles.

Some of the other options in the "I Can Be" series that were already in stores at the time of the contest are "Ballerina," "Bride," and "Babysitter." Enough said. But, to be fair, the two newest entries are the 125th and 126th careers for Barbie throughout her five-decade history, so there have been some more interesting ones in the mix over the years: numerous U.S. military officers, astronauts, chefs, diplomats, and um, wedding stylists.

The fact that there is a "Computer Engineer Barbie" is notable not only because it's a legitimate new "professional" entry into the series, but especially because computer science is a field in which women continue to be dramatically underrepresented--way more so than among, say, news anchors or architects.

There are, obviously, two sides to this.… Read more

Let's say you'd constituted a drinking game for the aftermath of Tuesday's unveiling of Google Buzz, the odd new mishmash of status messages, geolocation, and social-media aggregation: Take a drink every time some pundit says Google is trying to "kill" Facebook, Twitter, or any number of the "geo" start-ups out there.

You'd have been totally blitzed.

The cries of "It's a Facebook killer!" and "It's going to kill Twitter!" are tedious, but completely understandable considering that this is one of the first big pushes from Google, … Read more

Microsoft and Facebook announced earlier on Friday a big change in their search and advertising relationship: that Facebook will handle all of its own graphical ads, ending a 2007 advertising agreement with Microsoft that accompanied Redmond's $240 million investment in the social network. At the same time, a more enhanced version of Microsoft's Bing search engine will be available through Facebook.

But Facebook, as it turns out, is getting rid of traditional banner ads altogether.

"We recently stopped displaying Microsoft's banner ads in some international markets. After additional talks with Microsoft, we have agreed to stop … Read more

Google has decided that its social-networking strategy could use a few more followers.

Perhaps no one did a better job of capturing the Internet from its inception until, say, 2007, than Google. But over the last several years, an explosion in Web content generated by social media has created a new dimension of the Web that Google doesn't control--and sometimes can't even see. Google CEO Eric Schmidt used to think that Google could index the Web by 2300, but he told CNET last year that with the advent of social media, "I'm not even sure it'… Read more

eBay's latest move, some of the auction site's devotees say, is straight out of the Ministry of Truth's playbook.

The company made an announcement on Tuesday announcement about lowering the listing fees for items--even though, in many cases, final value fees will be raised. The company's discussion forums simmered with outrage over the executive decision, and frustration over the lack of other options for auction-style e-commerce.

"What a joke," commented one person on the eBay Seller Central forum, asking for advice about transferring the items from an eBay "store" to another … Read more

Who needs opinion columnists when you have Twitter? Once the hub of micro-punditry recovered from a molasses-like slowdown amid chatter surrounding the launch of Apple's iPad, it became clear that the Twittering masses had a thing or two to say to Steve Jobs about his pretty new gadget. And it wasn't all nice.

In general, people seemed optimistic about the pricing, since some rumors had pegged it as north of $1,000, and the iBooks store was getting reactions of eager anticipation--but many other tweets were underwhelmed or downright disappointed. No Flash, no camera, no multitasking, and too … Read more