[brandonkm]

This seems to be a microcosm of the problem Facebook is facing. Everyone is on it, yet significant (public company esque) profits have yet to materialize. It is definitely a social phenomenon, but unlike eBay and Yahoo monetizing the service is proving to be difficult at very large scales.

Theres also the problem of advertising on a social networking site. If we could observe everyone in that US Airways lounge's average Facebook session, how many ads would we see people click on out of that group? How many people brought something or signed up for something after clicking those ads? Advertising dynamics on a social networking site are fundamentally different. A question I always ask people when the topic of Facebook comes up is "have you ever clicked an ad on there? I don't think I have" and the answer is always some variation of "actually, now that I think about it I haven't". I'm not going to extrapolate too much on this given my sample size, but if this is the standard response to this question everywhere, then Facebook has a serious problem (despite its phenomenon status).

[catz]

It may be true that it is different - but it can be as profitable as other (search companies).

Remember that Facebook basically have all your personal data with which it can select products for you to buy.