Twitter might have 10 billion tweets, but Facebook’s (News - Alert) going to have a billion bucks.

 

According to figures from the Inside Facebook blog, the social networking site made “upwards of $700 million in 2009 and is expected to reach a phenomenal $1 billion in revenues in 2010,” reported industry observer Jolie O’Dell (News - Alert).

 

As Mashable notes, Facebook’s finances have always been a matter of conjecture – “as Facebook is a private company, it has no obligation to release its revenues, profits or costs.”

Facebook’s been following a nice progression we’d like to see around here a bit more, its revenues multiplying like rabbits, from $150 million in 2007 to around $300 million in 2008 and so on.

 

“Performance advertising seemed to account for the biggest chunk of Facebook’s 2009 revenue,” writes The Big Money. “InsideFacebook credits a big advertising push from social gaming companies, along with direct marketers and local businesses. Since competition between gaming companies is heating up, they may need to spend more on ads in the future to stay relevant.”

 

The breakdown of revenue streams is “fascinating, showing the extent to which well-targeted ads based on massive amounts of user data still drives how we monetize the Web,” O’Dell noted.

 

“Facebook has been growing rapidly, most recently surpassing 400 million users last month. It still has a long way to go before it reaches profitability levels that can rival those of tech giants like Google (News - Alert),” Mashable says, adding “if it can crack the social media revenue nut though, it could pave the way for monetization for thousands of other websites and apps.”

 

Last year, O’Dell said, “brand advertising and performance advertising are estimated to have netted $225 million and $350 million for the company, respectively. Microsoft (News - Alert) ads alone brought in $50 million.

 

Facebook earned $10 million from its still-in-beta Facebook Credits system, O’Dell noted, wondering how much that figure would increase “when Credits are rolled out for all users and all applications.” Seeing as how Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of all Credits revenue, the sky’s the limit.