• Bloomberg BusinessWeek et al., Wednesday, August 4, 2010 2:22 PM

Having recently crossed the half-billion member mark and increasingly seen as the gateway to the Web, Facebook continues to command ever greater shares of ad dollars. Over the past year, the social network's top advertisers have increased spending by at least 10-fold, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Some advertisers, she added, have increased their Facebook budgets by as much as 20-fold or more.

The site's ad prices, meanwhile have held steady even as user growth fueled a surge in inventory, said Sandberg. "Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us ... They started buying with us a year ago. Now, they're going big."

"Facebook is courting advertisers and ramping up the pace of acquisitions to wring profit from its more than 500 million users, who don't pay to use the site," reports Bloomberg.

As a result, Facebook's sales may rise to $1.4 billion in 2010 from $700 million to $800 million last year, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg last week.

Last week' story in Bloomberg led with the news that Facebook was planning to hold off on an IPO until 2012. "The timing of the two articles may ... suggest the company saw a PR need to assure investors it could rake in enough dough to appease shareholders a little longer," writes Vator News. "Why the IPO delay? The official line is nebulous: more time to grow. One wonders whether execs believe the right time has to be after the public impact of the unauthorized Facebook movie, which paints the company's founding in murky colors, dies down."

Also of note, to accelerate growth, Facebook may start pursuing larger acquisitions, Vaughan Smith, director of corporate development at the social net, tells Bloomberg. "As we get bigger and our platform gets more stable, I fully expect that we will be doing more significant acquisitions," said Smith. "This is working for us, and it's working for the people that we're acquiring."

"The [acquisition] team will be mostly looking at companies focused on virtual currencies and mobile social networking, and startups that can help ramp up advertising revenues from its 500+ million users on its way to an eventual initial public offering," TechCrunch points out. "And to bring more guns to the upcoming war with Google, of course."

"Of course, the real benefit of Facebook's startup sweep-up could be to get some brilliant minds within the company," writes EricTric.com. "Case in point: Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, who previously worked for FriendFeed, swept up by Facebook for about $50 million one year ago."

Read the whole story at Bloomberg BusinessWeek et al. »