Chez Moncef

Given that Ben Brooks writes regularly about tech topics, and that he usually makes astute observations, I was quite surprised to read his reaction to the rumor that Microsoft will be acquiring Skype for at least $7 billion:

It’s the same problem that Facebook and Twitter face — massive user base with no idea how to profit from it.

Such a bold statement, yet so wrong. It took me less than a minute to find this key paragraph in a New York Times DealBook article from January:

Last year, Facebook recorded revenue of approximately $2 billion, with roughly $400 million in profit, according to people briefed on the company’s results. That is up from $220 million in earnings on $770 million in sales in 2009.

Here are more Google search results, Ben.

Facebook recently rolled out a new Home Page with a real-time stream of your friends’ posts. While the new features are welcome, the new design is not, but that’s for another post.

If you have hundreds of active “friends,” you will want to filter your news feed to weed out the info you’re not interested in at any given time. You do that by creating Friend Lists. If you’ve never done that, just head on over to your Friends page and click on “Make a New List” in the left column. Give it a name and start adding friends to it. For example, some of my lists are: family, close friends, DC friends, music industry and co-workers.

Once you have your friends organized, you will see your lists on the left on your Home Page. Clicking on a list will only show posts from people in that list.

Friend Lists come in handy in other situations too: when you need to invite a large group of people at once to events (especially recurring ones) and controlling who sees various parts of your profile (see my previous post on Facebook Privacy).