But the question everyone wants answered is whether Facebook can live up to last year's hype and establish itself as a genuine advertising environment that is part of brands' overall marketing strategies.
Facebook has been in the news as much as ever in 2008, with police coming under fire for setting up a car crash site, and Hasbro and Mattel - owners of the rights to Scrabble - taking exception to a popular online game called Scrabulous, which has, apparently, attracted 600,000 users.
Leaving aside the intellectual property issue, the Scrabulous episode demonstrates the ability of social networks to attract large groups of people to interact with brands, something even the most cynical of marketers and media agency folk can relate to. Hasbro and Mattel naturally want to protect their brand equity, but what if they cut a deal with Scrabulous and suddenly had access to an engaged group of fans passionate about their product? That is direct marketing gold dust.
Yes, there are concerns about privacy and making sure users aren't targeted with intrusive ads against their will. But fmcg brands such as Danone, Coca-Cola and Walkers Crisps have already successfully tested the water on Facebook.
If Chandlee and his UK team can establish the social utility's commercial credentials over the next 12 months, Facebook could be here to stay as an advertising medium. After all, a global network of 61 million people, seven million in the UK, is something no modern marketer can ignore.
