Facebook 2011 revenue from gaming

World’s most popular social networking site, Facebook is expected to generate approximately 1 billion in revenue from social gaming this year. The prediction was made by a leading Internet Entrepreneur and Former Chief Executive of online advertising giant DoubleClick, Kevin Ryan, during his interview with Reuters this week. Ryan’s brother, Sean Ryan, became director of gaming partnerships at Facebook in early 2011.

Ryan has also said that most of the revenues of the website will come from advertising. Research firm eMarketer had estimated in January that ad spending on Facebook would exceed $4 billion this year. The amount is more than double the levels of 2010. At present, Facebook has more than 500 million active users, which attracts more ad companies.

The website’s initial public offering (IPO) could be very high and the valuation is expected to be around $100 billion. The main developer of social games on Facebook, Zynga has filed for an IPO on Friday, for $1 billion.

Zynga has disclosed that it had generated $235 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2011 which was more than double the same period last year.