Is Facebook already more profitable than Amazon?

Summary: Facebook’s financial details may not be public, but estimates show it could already be more profitable than Amazon. Revenue is a different story.

How profitable is Facebook? Since the young company is still private, nobody knows for sure. Still, estimates indicate the social networking giant could already be pulling in more profits than the online retail giant Amazon. If it isn’t already, it will be by the end of the year, at least according to unofficial numbers.
Facebook’s revenue passed $1.6 billion in the first half of 2011 and saw around $800 million in operating income (although net income was reportedly just under $500 million). Uncrunched points to Amazon’s financials for the same time period: $322 million operating income in Q1 and $191 million operating income in Q2, or $513 million for the first half of 2011.
Palo Alto’s revenue and profit is rising at an estimated 50 percent clip every six months. In other words, $2 billion in operating income for 2011 is entirely possible.
It’s important to remember that revenue and profit are two completely different beasts. While Facebook may be passing Amazon in profit, it’s nowhere near when it comes to revenue. Amazon saw a total of $34 billion in revenue for 2010. Facebook’s revenue for last year is estimated to anywhere from less than $1 billion up to nearly $2 billion.

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All About Jobs and Hiring in Linux Land

"Most developer jobs require current knowledge of non-open software," said blogger Barbara Hudson, "but it's a safe bet to say that most jobs are not 'open' jobs. ... The most reliable way to get a job that uses open source exclusively is to create your own. The bad news is that, as in every previous recession, we're seeing a lot of this 'involuntary entrepreneurship.' The good news is that this time the tools are freely available."

Well it's been a busy month of October here in the Linux blogosphere, with no shortage of news to absorb, react to and fret about.


There's been the ongoing Windows 8 secure boot saga, of course -- which just last week gained the voice of the Free Software Foundation. There's also been the long-awaited arrival of Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot," with all the associated angst about Unity and Linux desktops -- a matter that hasn't been helped any by word that Linux Mint is now developing a GNOME 3 edition of its own.

Then, too, there's been OpenOffice.org's plea for fundraising support -- followed immediately by assurance from the Apache Software Foundation that everything's A-OK.

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