Although the U.S. employment and jobs economic outlook is bleak, a new study released today reports that Facebook is creating a thriving economy around its social network. According to new research from University of Maryland, the Facebook App Economy has added at least 182,000 new jobs and contributed more than $12.19 billion in wages and benefits to the U.S. economy this year. Using more aggressive estimates, the Facebook App Economy created a total of 235,644 jobs, adding a value of $15.71 billion to the U.S. economy in 2011.

The study evaluated jobs created in the app industry (direct employment), jobs created in other sectors of the economy from Facebook’s ecosystem (indirect employment), and the economic value of those jobs, including salary and benefits.

As we’ve written in the past, 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, and Facebook users install 20 million apps every day. Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites. Especially with the viral growth of gaming apps, as well as the use of the ‘Like’ button used by brands, more and more developers are building off the Facebook platform to tap into the network’s 700 million-plus userbase.

Clearly, the Facebook App Economy is huge.

Internally, Facebook has been known as a job engine of sorts, employing a staff of over 2,000 and growing rapidly. Of course, it would be interesting to see the economies of Google’s APIs and Twitter’s ecosystem evaluated in similar terms for comparison.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/19/study-facebook-app-economy-adds-over-200k-jobs-contributes-more-than-15b-to-the-u-s-economy/

To put this figure in perspective, the economy of Lagos State is $40-50 billion. That of Nigeria is $200 billion or so.

Facebook apps alone may add $15 billion+ to the US economy.

Kind of insane if you think about it.

Where did you get the figure for the Lagos and Nigerian budget. Did you just make it up like you usually do? Anyways, that's beside the point.

Nigeria only has itself. to blame. How can a country with huge human and natural resources depend hugely on oil money. We've not fully tapped
to other vital sections of the economy eg Agriculture, Tourism, Sports and very importantly Technology. These are huge earners.

Who mentioned budget? gdp !=budget.

Part of the reason you seem to think I make things up is because you don't understand what is being said, it appears.

Anyway you can find the lagos gdp # from the economist. Nigeria gdp from tons of sites, wikipedia for one (see the references it uses mentioned there)