Facebook was recently valued at a staggering $50 billion thanks to a $500 million investment by Goldman Sachs.
With 500 million users, that means each account is worth $100 to Facebook, or £64 at the current exchange rate.
Whilst that might not sound a lot per person, collectively it means that Facebook is now one of the highest value internet companies going.
TheNextWeb puts it into perspective with this infographic, showing that Facebook is fourth on the list behind Apple, Google and Amazon(click for larger image):
I can see Facebook being worth more per subscriber than Amazon, Google, and Apple. Given the amount of data Facebook has access to, its monetisation per subscriber can break any of the traditional norms.
Facebook has hit a sweet spot on the Internet. Its value is that it was the first out. It is not that the website has been implemented very well: quite the contrary. But in this world good enough usually does the job. It will be hard for any direct competitor to establish a toehold since two of the same product is counter-productive in this space.