DAMN: In 2010, Facebook took in $1.86 billion in advertising revenue DAMN

Analysts are claiming that Facebook and Google may have more in common than previously believed, especially when it comes to how Facebook handles advertising. In new results from eMarketer, Facebook is raking in quite a bit of revenue based on advertising through the site. But, what’s most surprising to analysts, is not so much how much money that Facebook is drawing in, but the fact that it’s not coming from major advertising agencies, but more from small- and medium-sized businesses.

Facebook’s self-service ad platform is seeing a lot of business as of late. The popular social networking site has seen a worldwide advertising revenue increase of 86% versus the previous year’s results, courtesy of the $1.86 billion in revenue in took in. Of that, $1.21 billion was earned within the United States, adds the analyst.

The main takeaway of the results, though, is where the majority of the money is coming from. According to eMarketer, 60 percent –or $1.12 billion– stems from small- or medium-sized business that are more than likely using self-serve tools to advertise on the social website. That’s compared to the $740 million that’s being produced by major marketers, like Coke, Match.com, and P&G. According to Debra Williamson, the principal analyst at eMarketer, these small- and medium-sized businesses are taking advantage of Facebook’s rapid growth (which now has over 650 million users), and using the strategies they used to promote themselves on Google to do the same thing on Facebook.

Williamson adds that, “Facebook is the biggest storehouse of consumer data on the internet.” With that being said, it’s no surprise that marketers and advertisers, and anyone else that can prosper from the data that Facebook collects every day, is flocking to the social networking website.