On Wednesday, SanJose.com wrote about the fall of Yahoo’s Carol Bartz that, “Before there was Google there was Yahoo, and before there was Yahoo there was Alta Vista, now long forgotten.” Empires rise, only to fall (as did Rome and the British).

Five years from now could we be reading, “Before there was Facebook there was Google, and before there was Google there was Yahoo, now long forgotten”?

We might, if Facebook’s latest revenues are any indication. According to Reuters, the company’s ad revenues doubled in the first half of 2011 to $1.6 billion, Dave Williams, CEO of Blinq Media which runs Facebook ad campaigns for its clients, has said, “We really see Facebook as becoming like the operating system for delivering ads on the Internet.” Considering how obsequious Google ads are now, that is a big slap in the face for the search engine giant.

Of course, it still has a long way to go. Even if this trend continues, Facebook’s ad revenue for all of 2011 would be about $3.5 billion. While most people could retire comfortably on that, it’s worth noting that Google’s total revenue for Q2 2011 was $9.03 billion.

It is, however, good news for investors, anxiously awaiting Facebook’s IPO release, rumored to be in 2012. Last January, the company was said to be worth $50 billion, but with the new ad revenue figures, its value is now estimated at closer to $80 billion.

One thing to note is that since Facebook is still a private company, it is not required by law to disclose official profit and loss figures, whereas Google does. Reuters’ received its information from an anonymous source, but there are good reasons to believe it. This past June, Facebook was the source of fully one-third of all Internet display advertisement impressions in the United States. That could be seen as a serious bite into a market once dominated by Google and that other company, whatchamacallit, the one that begins with a Y.

Read More at Reuters
Read More at Slate
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