• Barron's Online, Friday, April 6, 2007 11:30 AM

Yahoo may regret its decision not to buy Facebook, since one of the dark stains on the Web giant's record was its decision not to buy Google when it had the chance. Was the decision to walk away from a Facebook deal a comparable error?

Not likely, but a stat-heavy report from Needham's David May indicates that Yahoo definitely passed up a golden opportunity. According to comScore data, the popular college-age social network recently passed 21 million registered users, generating 1.5 billion page views per day. Ninety-three percent of its registered users log on at least once a month; 63 percent use it at least once a day. Facebook is now the 36th most visited site on the Web, the No. 1 destination for photos and, perhaps most surprisingly, the No. 1 destination on the Web for both males and females aged 17-25. A recent Student Monitor survey cites Facebook as the second-most "in" thing among undergrads, tied with beer. Apple's iPod ranked higher than both.

More numbers from the Needham report: Facebook is now generating twice as many page views annually than Yahoo had assumed in an analysis published by Tech Crunch last fall, back when the Web giant was considering a purchase. The crucial number is monthly page views per user, which were 1,061 in the Tech Crunch report. The figure now is 2,329, according to May. "Facebook is no doubt one of the most important Internet companies to have been created in the last five years."

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