We love to share all things good here at Visual Jazz, and whether it’s an awesome piece of design work, a creative and innovative marketing campaign or just a hilarious gif, we are always looking for inspiration and knowledge to help make our work ever better.

With this in mind we’re bringing you a weekly blog post to share our collection of interesting and insightful articles, inspired by Dan Calladine – Head of Media Futures at Carat and a member of our Aegis Network.

Thanks for reading VJs Global Snapshot, bringing you the best in all things digital.

Facebook

Facebook’s IPO: Facebook revenues revealed

So now all this ‘how much money Facebook makes?’ cat is out of the bag! According to the S-1, Facebook made a modest $382,000 in revenue 2004, $9 million in revenue in 2005, $48 million in revenue in 2006 and $153 million in revenue in 2007, with no reporting of net loss.

Facebook does reports loss for revenue numbers post 2006: It made $153 million in revenue in 2007, with a $138 million loss, $272 million in 2008 with a $56 million loss and was finally profitable in 2009 with a net income of $290 million on $777 million in revenue.

For those of you that are fact checking enthusiasts: The $777 million and $290 million number falls in line with press reports, and analysts were also right about Facebook’s $2 billion in revenue and $606 million in net income for 2010.

Social Media

The super bowl: Social media makes ads more valuable


Having spent record-breaking sums to secure the most valuable television slots in advertising, global brands from Coca-Cola to Volkwagen are looking to leverage social media to extend the buzz and reach of their ads.

According to executives from Comcast Corp’s NBC television network, which will broadcast the February 5 football game, a 30-second commercial slot cost $3.5 million on average this year, up from $3 million for last year’s Super Bowl, which was on News Corp’s Fox station.

‘The social media conversation has put more value on a Super Bowl ad, fans will discuss your ads on Twitter and Facebook and then go to YouTube to watch it on demand over and over again,’ said Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media.

Mobile

Travel site Kayak goes ‘mobile first’

One of the world’s most popular travel websites has decided mobile is better. On Monday, Kayak is rolling out an updated design for its eight-year-old site. But it’s not just any old tweak of the look and feel. Kayak is now consciously taking design cues from its recently updated iPad and iPhone apps.

Normally, a web-based company that decides to make an app wants to translate the look and feel of its site to that app. But Kayak has been there, done that. And from the design team to the executive team, those within Kayak say it now makes more sense to do the opposite. ‘I got to the point where I actually liked iPhone app better than our website, I thought it was aesthetically more beautiful,” Kayak co-founder and CTO Paul English said in an interview last week.

And more links to digital that we are delighted by:

Openarch – the smart home of the future

The Window Shop: Net-a-Porter’s augmented reality window shopping

National Sweater Day for the WWF