Facebook now has 300 million users, and has announced that it has finally started making a profit. This is solid proof that although social media and networking sites are good fun, they are not a good business model, at least not for start ups.

If an online store had as many returning customers it would be driving a recovery in the world economy. The social networking model reminds me of how public houses have had to evolve. Whereas there was a time when more clients meant more money, increasing costs has meant that many businesses cannot rely of selling drinks alone. A large number of pubs make their profit from selling food, not drink. Drink brings in the clients at first, it is what leads them to the pub, but the hard sell must be on food for the business to make any profit.

Facebook is certainly moving that way. Its advertising, which is based on the Google Adsense model of PPC and impressions, is starting to be well received by advertisers. With a huge audience, and the software in place, success is now just a matter of time.

Facebook is still winning 5 million new customers each week too. Soon there may be two services on the Internet, the open model as run by Google, and the closed, subscription based model, run by Facebook. For other businesses to succeed, they need to work with both. It is rumoured that Facebook will soon be floated on the stock market. The people will be able to buy a stake in the website that they help to build and promote.

WordPress, the most popular open source blogging platform, has just introduced its new piece of software, BuddyPress. WordPress describes BuddyPress as a sister to WordPress, although it actually requires the WPMU (WordPress Multi-user) version of Wordpres to run. The idea is that website owners can easily build their own social networking sites. Rather than just comment on articles, members will be able to interact with each other, and possibly start their own topics too, as well as have their own profile pages.

“In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you’ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.”

More information is available from the WordPress Development blog and also the new Buddy Press Community.

“BuddyPress will transform an installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform.” BuddyPress.org

Just noticed Facebook is looking a little smoother around the edges, and also that user “status” has been replaced with “What’s on your mind?”.

User profile photos now have rounded edges too.

On the home page there is more detailed information on what you can see in your own Facebook homepage, i.e.

“You’re looking at the real-time stream of posts from your friends and connections. Control the stream using the filters on the left. To hide posts from friends in this stream, click the “x” in the upper right-hand corner of a post. ”

All good. FB does keep getting better as it grows. The privacy concerns seem to be getting sorted too. Facebook continues to keep one step ahead of its competitors.

Recent studies carried out by Travelsupermarket.com have revealed an unexpected side effect of the Web2.0 internet phenomenon – holiday flings are becoming less common, and the internet is to blame. In the days before social networking and Googling, people felt that they were safe to have some passionate fun while on holiday, in the knowledge that they could easily avoid seeing their lover again if they desired. However, now more and more people are being poked (a Facebook term) and Googled by their fling and tracked down, much to the annoyance of the other party involved.

It is estimated that 1 in 5 people that had a holiday romance in 2008 were contacted after the holiday by their lover, via popular social networking sites. This trend is on the increase, as more people are building profiles online. And this is starting to make people think twice (when sober enough to think at all!) about having a fling while on holiday!