Popularity of Facebook set to rise

Social networking website Facebook has become one of the fastest growing brands with 200,000 new members joining every day, according to the site.The popular website has attracted investment from software giant Microsoft who is paying £117 million for a 1.6 per cent stake in the company.The deal will see Microsoft gain the exclusive advertising platform for Facebook and its agreement has valued the company at £7.3 billion.The site was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and has reportedly attracted interest from several major companies but a takeover bid of $1 billion from Yahoo was declined last year.There are 50 million people worldwide signed up to Facebook, with 3.5 million members in the UK.The in-depth knowledge Facebook contains about its users makes it a valuable tool for companies like Microsoft and Google which want to sell advertising targeted to individual preferences.Facebook is the seventh most visited site in the world and it's estimated that 233 million hours of work is lost each month in the UK due to staff looking at social networks such as Facebook.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

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ITN | October 26, 2007

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