The world’s most popular social networking site, Facebook (FB), has managed to raise $500 million in funding from investment firm Goldman Sachs as well as Digital Sky Technologies (DST), a Russian investment firm. According to the New York Times’ sources, this deal has valued the company at $50 billion, which makes FB now worth more than other tech giants such as eBay and Yahoo.

 

This deal sees Goldman Sachs investing $450 million in FB, whilst DST (which has already invested around half a billion dollars in the social networking company) put up the remaining $50 million. The latest investment is also likely to increase pressure for the company to go public. 

 

According to internet tracking company Experian Hitwise, “facebook” was the top search term overall for the second year in a row in the US, notching up 2.11% of all searches, whilst “facebook login” climbed from the 9th spot in 2009 to the second spot in 2010. The social networking site managed four entries in the top ten most searched terms for 2010, as “facebook.com” was the 6th most searched for term and “www.facebook.com” took the 9th spot.

 

An even more significant achievement for the social networking behemoth was that it trumped Google as the most visited site of 2010 for the first time in the States. It (www.facebook.com) accounted for 8.93% of all US visits from January to November 2010, whilst www.google.com was relegated to the runner up spot with 7.19% of visits, followed by Yahoo! Mail with 3.52%.  

 

Last year the company also filed a trademark application for the word “face”, which was approved by the US Patent Office.