Analysts said this shows the financial viability of Facebook, which has faced questions about its underlying business model, despite its popularity, and was a good sign for a potential initial public offering.

“It’s certainly meaningful to show that this is absolutely the real deal,” said Broadpoint Amtech analyst Ben Schachter. “They are executing. People are spending money on the site.”

Since its creation in a Harvard dorm room five years ago, Facebook has emerged as one of the Internet’s most popular destinations and is increasingly challenging the Web’s established powerhouses like Yahoo Inc and Google Inc.

Facebook unveiled a revamped search engine last month and is currently testing an online payment system. Facebook users have tripled from about 100 million a year ago.

In related Facebook news, yesterday the company announced “Facebook Prototypes,” which has been described as its version of Google Labs, where developers can test out beta versions of various applications that may still have “some kinks to work out.” Nonetheless, if you’re interested to see how Facebook expects to stay ahead of its competitors, it’s a good way to see what they’ve got up their sleeves.

“The traditional early-adopter model would say that teenagers or college students are really important to adoption,” said Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis at comScore. Teenagers, after all, drove the early growth of the social networks Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.

Twitter, however, has proved that “a site can take off in a different demographic than you expect and become very popular,” he said. “Twitter is defying the traditional model.”

Sure, teenagers and college students made MySpace and Facebook what they are today, but young people also have a ton of time on their hands to customize profiles, add “about me” information, browse profiles, and so on. Older folks usually have responsibilities like careers and kids, and so they don’t (or can’t) devote the same amount of attention to keeping updated.

The great thing about Twitter, however, is that it doesn’t require much of a learning curve or time commitment to participate. Even better, it’s been built to work on mobile devices, so users can check tweets and update on the go. Given this dynamic, it’s no surprise Twitter has been embraced by older users, who are able to get a lot out of a service they don’t have to put a lot into.

When you’re new to the social media scene, the number of sites you need to monitor may feel overwhelming. Fortunately, Mashable has a great post about free tools that will have anyone up and running with online reputation monitoring on blogs, blog comments, Twitter, message boards, and more. Definitely worth a look!

Blog It would be very cool if it allowed you display all of your information on one page as well as update it all from one page, which would in essence “eliminate the middle man” of the various social media sites and make it extremely convenient and less time consuming for users to update and display their info. I can’t imagine the Twitters, YouTubes and WordPresses of the world would be too pleased with this service, but really, it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?

The most apt description for MySpace I’ve ever heard is that it’s like a terrible club with gaudy decorations, expensive drinks and awful music – but your friends hang out there, so you find yourself hanging out there, too.

Today was “International Delete Your MySpace Account Day.” I understand the reasoning here, but for me, it’s hindered by one important fact: MySpace is the most popular social network in the world. It’s important to understand MySpace because of its size and popularity. Like it or not, MySpace isn’t going anywhere, a fact that becomes especially evident when you compare it to the technically-superior competitors that have come and gone as MySpace has thrived.

So, although I was tempted to delete that rarely-visited, poorly-maintained private profile of mine, I ultimately decided to keep it. I’ll endure the drawbacks and hope MySpace gets its act together as other networks catch fire.

In the 90′s it seemed like everyone had a personal home page with pictures, interests and links to other pages they liked. The social network has largely replaced the home page, and many people maintain blogs and accounts with any of the countless Web 2.0 services that compete for our attention.

I would really like to figure out how to include all of this information on one page, with each aspect featuring its own RSS feed. Facebook has come the closest to this idea since it opened up its API, but users there are still stuck, in many ways, within a walled garden. Web widgets are also progressing in this direction, but don’t offer the essential ability to customize.

Looks like I have some research to do.

Let’s break down the offending photo: It’s a woman in a pirate hat. She’s drinking from a large yellow plastic cup, which obscures most of her face. The caption reads, “Drunken Pirate.”

Presumably Millersville University has more of an issue with the caption than the actual photo, because they justify their actions (according to Snyder) by claiming they believe Snyder’s photo encourages underage drinking. That may hold up when high school students are photographed with bottles of beer in their hands, but this photo shows no evidence that any alcohol is actually being consumed. And there’s also the little detail that Snyder is over 21, so even if there is alcohol being consumed, she’s doing nothing illegal.

When we hear stories of people getting fired or punished for their online activity, they usually deserve it. This, however, is a gross example of over-reactive behavior on the part of the university, and Snyder is rightly suing. We should remember, however, that if she were fired from a job over this photo, she would have no recourse. It’s a reminder that we need to err on the side of extreme caution when we put anything online for public consumption, since we never know the sensibilities of who’s viewing it.

A paradigm shift of this nature requires a 180 degree shift in approach. Businesses must resort to influence now, and understand that controlling the message is a luxury of times now gone. Further, this influence is based on trust, so more than ever true relationship building is thrust upon corporate America. This means they have to be honest, communicate, give as well as take (value for $), and be prepared for feedback.

The real challenge for those who provide PR counsel is to convince clients that this is an area worth participating in, and then allocating the proper resources to do it right. Not only do we need a 180 degree shift in approach, but a 180 degree shift in perception, as well.

Today we’ve got video from TV recorded to DVRs, ripped to hard drives and uploaded to YouTube for everyone to view, share, and embed. Local newspaper stories are available to a global audience in an instant. Millions upon millions of people are sharing thoughts, photos, video and other information via blogs and social networks. What was once the domain of professional broadcasters and public figures has now trickled down to anyone with an internet connection and a Blogger account.

Yes, now we all have the opportunity to put our foot in our mouth and have it broadcast, so to speak, around the world.

Everyone’s heard horror stories about someone sending an embarrassing e-mail to an unintended recipient. Or, for that matter, everyone in the office. New job applicants fresh out of college are inadvertently sharing their compromising spring break photos with their future potential employers via their MySpace pages. Add in message boards, social networks, blog comments… And so on. Plus we have to remain transparent, so when we screw up we’re not supposed to (ahem) quietly sweep our comments under the rug. It’s tough.

The sheer number of opportunities we have to communicate on a widespread scale means we’ve got to be extremely careful in what we write or say. Seeing as how we’re the first generation to face this responsibility, there are bound to be some growing pains. The best we can do is try and not write anything online that can come back and bite us, double-check before hitting “save,” and have mercy on those who slip up.