Facebook Finds Big Money In Virtual Gifts

It’s amazing what people will pay for some things.  Take the Bugatti Veyron, for example – a nice car, but with a price tag of well over $1 million, it’s in "great house" territory.  Or look at Facebook’s virtual gifts – little pictures that do nothing and yet should attract around $35 million.

Yes, according to a new estimate from Lightspeed Venture Partners, annual sales of teddy bear sketches may equal $34.5 million.  And although that number doesn’t come straight from Facebook, Jeremy Liew put a fair amount of sound reasoning and math into establishing it.

Liew then looked at the sales figure in another light, writing, "Given that Zuckerberg has estimated that Facebook will do between $300-$350 million in revenue this year, digital goods constitutes a meaningful secondary revenue stream for the company."

While slightly embarrassing at first glance, that’s good for Facebook and good for developers and investors.  If a few pixels can sell for $35 million, the social network might be capable of generating all sorts of cash once it’s properly monetized.

Then again, it’s not as if Facebook hasn’t been trying up until now, so this news can’t be taken as proof of the network’s eventual success.