Facebook Revenue 2009

Facebook has topped the expectations in 2009 by realizing nearly 800 million dollars income last year, ABC News reported referring to two unnamed sources. Insiders also revelaed that the social media community has gained 10 million dollars operating profit last year. The 800 million dollars revenue has far exceeded the company’s expectations.

Facebook – which has almost 500 million registered users now – was started as a closed network of university students in 2004. The social media announced in 2009 that its financial balance has turned to posititive, realizing more income than expenditure. At the same year analysts estimated 500 million dollars of the company’s earnings. Although, privacy scandals have cracked the company’s reputation plenty of times recently, the number of registered users and advertisers are steadily growing.

Experts believe, the success in Facebook’s advertising platform is that the large general advertising campaigns can find their ways to their target groups just like smaller, highly specialized marketing campaigns.

Facebook regularly rejects buying and investing offers, while the business world is waiting for the company’s introduction in the stock markets. However, this move is unlikely now, because Facebook is able to finance its agressive expansion from its own revenues. Besides the founders, the company’s shareholders are Microsoft, the Russian Digital Sky Technologies, the Hong Kong based billionaire Li Ka-Shing and other venture capital groups.

Ban on Big sites

Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has confirmed that it has received ban orders from Lahore High Court on Thursday to ban Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, Bing, YouTube, Amazon etc , reported BBC Urdu, citing unnamed sources in the Ministry.

Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has confirmed that it has received ban orders from Lahore High Court on Thursday to ban Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, Bing, YouTube, Amazon etc , reported BBC Urdu, citing unnamed sources in the Ministry.It merits mentioning here that inter-ministerial committee of IT Ministry decides on how to and why to ban or not to ban a website.

Committee is reportedly meeting today to discuss the implication, execution and procedures of the ban.IT Ministry has an option of getting stay-order from Supreme Court against LHC’s decision; however, all these options will be discussed in today’s meeting.Unlike Facebook’s ban previous month, LHC’s current ban orders for search engines were not welcomed by the masses.Earlier this week, Lahore High Court had ordered to immediately block nine websites for publishing and promoting sacrilegious material while hearing a writ petition filed by a citizen, Muhammad Sidiq, seeking a ban on the websites for publishing blasphemous materials and twisting the facts and figure of Holy Quran.PTA has already sent a summary to Prime Minister of Pakistan to discuss ban options of offensive websites – summary has details on implications of banning search engines and social media.Ban includes 9 websites, which are considered as backbone of internet, blocking them will mean a total internet blackout in the country.

Last month "Everybody Draw Muhammed Day" drew protests from students in Lahore.

 A Pakistani court has ruled that the government can unblock Facebook if the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority takes measures to block any objectionable material on the social networking site, a lawyer involved in the case said.

Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ali, a lawyer representing the Islamic Lawyers Movement, which initially petitioned the court to block Facebook, said the next hearing for the case will be June 15.

On that day, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority will explain to the court how it plans to block objectionable material on Facebook and other websites.

An official from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said that Facebook will be unblocked immediately after the court delivers a written order.

Pakistan blocked the site May 19 in response to an online group that called on people to draw depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, officials said Wednesday. Drawing depictions of the prophet is forbidden to followers of Islam; devout Muslims consider such depictions offensive.

The Telecommunication Authority issued the order a day before “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” scheduled by a Facebook group with the same name, because of “the objectionable material” on the site, said Khoram Ali Mehran of the Telecommunication Authority.

Meanwhile, nearby Bangladesh also blocked access to Facebook over the weekend, after government officials said satirical cartoons of the prophet and the country’s leaders were uploaded.