"Facebook is not a bubble"

"I can't give any figures, they'll shoot me!", says Joanna Shields, Facebook Managing Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She mentions that fact in a funny way, but in reality her joke is a key issue. Facebook, the popular social network, keeps the most important secrets of almost 700 million users, and does not disclose any details. It is impossible to know whether it will become the next Google or an empty bubble. Its income per user, its revenues or its real value are mere speculations. Just as Twitter or, until not long ago, Groupon.

They are within their rights, as they are businesses that are not quoted on the market. But this opacity 2.0 is creating so much uncertainty that nobody is capable of answering the question: are we before a new dot-com bubble?

More than 250 million people log into Facebook from their cellphones

"Facebook is an incredibly solid business," Shields says reassuringly during her first interview with a Spanish media outlet. She is an internet veteran. Born in Pennsylvania and currently settled in London, she oversaw the birth of social networks. First, at Google, with Orkut. Then as head of Bebo, which she sold to AOL for $850 million, and now at Facebook. The number of registered users at Facebook has dropped in the United States and in Europe, but not in Spain. Nearly eight million Spaniards use Facebook every day. But there is not a word about the network's finances.

Question. Months before going public, in 2004, Google was transparent about its finances. Why does Facebook not follow that example?

Answer. People believe that we are prepared to disclose some information, and we are not. I don't think there is a transparency problem. When we are ready to tell, we will.

Q. Groupon will soon go public. Will Facebook follow this year or in 2013?

A. Our Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said that it is inevitable, but we have not provided a concrete date. Mark [Zuckerberg, founder and CEO] always argues that we have only achieved one percent of our goals. There is still a lot to be done.

Q. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt argues that Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are the companies to keep an eye on in the future. He rules out Microsoft. What do you think?

A. That he is a very smart man. I know Eric and he certainly has a point. But I don't think Microsoft is out of the picture, because it has a lot of valuable assets. The acquisition of Skype was very exciting for them, and products like Messenger have a long tradition.

Q. But Google, Apple and Amazon earn billions of dollars - they are proven businesses. What about Facebook?

A. We have an incredibly solid business, based on advertisement and on Facebook credits, our virtual currency. Fifty percent of our users logs into Facebook every day. In the UK, for instance, there are 30 million active users, more than half of the whole population. Of them, 17 million log in every day and spend an average of seven hours a month. Those are interesting figures for marketers.

Q. LinkedIn and Pandora are struggling in the stock exchange. There are talks of a new dotcom bubble.

A. I do not know enough about those businesses. I can assure you that Facebook is definitely not a bubble.

Q. Advertisements are Facebook's most significant source of revenue. Is that sustainable in the long term?

A. Of course. I am a big fan of this type of business. Look what Google has done: organize the world's information, provide search results and monetize them. That was last decade. This decade is about social networks, and our ads are different. They are based on sharing information with friends and on advertisers that encourage fans to do the same.

Q. How do you plan to capitalize on the cellphone?

A. More than 250 million people use Facebook from their cellphones. Recently we added the check-in deals, which allow users to check into a location and transact or get a special offer delivered to their phone. That is a good first step. The cellphone is just extending the experience.

Q. How important is Europe and Spain for Facebook?

A. Hugely important. Europe is a very robust advertising market. In Spain we have 15 million active users. Of them, 7.5 million use Facebook every day.