Ka-Ching! 

Silicon Valley veteran Mark Andreessen, who sits on Facebook’s board, says the company will rack up billions of dollars in revenue in five years.

It’s more important at this stage for social sites like Facebook and Twitter to beef up their base of user, rather than worry too much about filling their money bags.

Privately held Facebook — which counts venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies among its investors — has never disclosed its revenue except to say it expects 70 percent growth this year.

Andreesen said Facebook will “do over $500 million,” this year.

Keep an eye on:

• Playboy’s former interim CEO jerry Kern steps dowon from its board. (PaidContent)
• Will iPods soon have built-in cameras? (TechCrunch)
• Advertising set for mild 2010 recovery-forecast (Reuters)

How much is a CEO worth? Its not an easy question. Just ask President Obama, or the top dog at the Post Office.

For Playboy Enterprises, the topic wasn’t so much about pay as is the severance given to Chief Executive Christie Hefner when she left in December after 20 years running the company. What is fair compensation to such a veteran — and the daughter of founder Hugh Hefner — even if she leaves the financially small company (with a huge brand name) at a time when it is racking up losses?

Jonathan Boyer of Boyer Asset Management asked Playboy’s team of executives that question on their quarterly earnings conference call:

Q: Could you just take me through the board’s decision on how it evaluated its fiduciary duty to shareholders regarding the severance package of the CEO? It was I believe a $2 million severance package on a company with a market cap as of yesterday of roughly roughly $50 million, especially in this — I know you said that there was no immediate liquidity problem with the company — but in light of the credit crisis we are facing.

A: Well, the…the board obviously evaluated the many years of Christie’s performance.
Christie had been with the company 33 years, had been CEO for 20 years. She was entitled under….the company’s severance plan to in excess of one-million-six (dollars) and the board thought about what was appropriate and decided it wasn’t in any way a — you know, a violation — of our fiduciary obligations to give her a severance package of two million.

Q: So she was entitled to one-six and got an extra 400,000 and is this payable immediately or over time?
A: It has already been paid.

Nice work if you can get it.

(Photo: Christie Hefner talks during the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit in New York on 1 Dec 2005/REUTERS)

We made our share of waves when we reported last year that Playboy was recruiting women laid off from banking and finance jobs to pose nude in the adult entertainment magazine. The photos and accompanying article were supposed to hit in February, though we hear that it’s been pushed back to May.

Meanwhile, we got this press release from More magazine, published by Meredith Corp:

MORE MAGAZINE WANTS EX-WALL STREET WOMEN FOR JUNE SWIMSUIT FEATURE

WHAT: Did you recently leave your Wall Street job and are curious to explore a new side of yourself? More magazine has an opportunity for you! More is giving all former Wall Street women ages 40-60 the chance to appear in its annual “Real-Women” June issue swimsuit feature. If you’re looking to trade your power suit for a swimsuit in the only lifestyle magazine for women over 40, this is your chance. Check out http://www.more.com/lifestyle/forums/wall-street-women/ for more details.

HOW: Women should email a full-length photo and headshot, as well as a brief description of their last Wall Street job and why they left, to wallstreetwomen@more.com. Women must be in the NY tri-state area and available for a photo shoot in NYC at the end of February.

WHEN: Submissions will be accepted until February 20th.

WHO: NY tri-state area women 40-60 who have recently left Wall Street jobs.

How come no one offers this kind of thing to journalists?

(Photo of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and friends, ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange in 2000)

If you thought DVDs’ days were numbered, check this out: even porn DVDs aren’t worth selling. That seems to be the bottom line from Playboy, anyway, which is shutting its DVD operation to save money and focus on online porn (not that playboy.com isn’t full of interesting articles). To get the full scoop, check out our story here.

Talk about naked shorting! Playboy magazine is getting into the financial crisis with a planned photo spread in its February 2009 issue and on Playboy.com called “Women of Wall Street.” With the potential for big job losses and a number of careers in the balance, the magazine figures that there’s no better time to tap into a relevant news topic, just like it did with “Women of WorldCom” and “Women of Enron” earlier in the decade.

You can read about the project on our website. Meanwhile, here are the rules:

Candidates currently must work for a financial institution or recently have worked for a financial institution to qualify. Women who are interested in posing can apply by sending one face shot, one full-body shot, and a legible photocopy of a government-issued photo ID proving they are 18 or older. They also must include the following information with their submission: full name, age, hometown, phone number, e-mail address, employment location, and a few sentences about themselves. For full details, please visit www.playboy.com/wallstreet.

Submissions can be sent to womenofwallstreet@playboy.com or mailed to:
PLAYBOY, Attn: Women of Wall Street/ 680 North Lake Shore Drive/ Chicago, IL 60611. Further instructions can be found at www.playboy.com/pose. Entries must be postmarked by MONTH DATE, 2008.

Deadline is Oct. 24. And… sorry: no guys allowed.

(Playboy diamond pendant photo: Reuters)

 As far as TV ratings go, last week’s presidential debate was a loser, drawing the one of the smaller audiences in modern history. It should be a different story for tonight’s vice-presidential debate.

For one thing, the presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, which drew just 52 million people, took place on a Friday night, never a great night for TV viewing. By contrast, the match-up between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden comes on a Thursday night, usually a big TV viewing night.

Besides, even though Katie Couric’s interviews with Palin only had a modest impact on CBS News ratings, as the New York Times points out, there is nonetheless a great deal of interest in the Republican vice presidential candidate.      

“This is going to be a hugely rated debate,” said Chuck Todd, political director of NBC News, told the Hollywood Reporter.  ”Whether you’re a fan of hers or you’re not a fan, it’s a white-knuckle affair.” 

The Associated Press tells us: “The most-watched vice presidential debate ever was in 1984, when 56.7 million people watched Vice President Bush take on Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket.”

We’ll soon see how tonight’s numbers stack up.

Keep an eye on: 

• Advertising group WPP declared its offer for bid target Taylor Nelson Sofres final and will not increase it (Reuters)
• Playboy magazine is launching a search for models to pose for its upcoming feature, “Women of Wall Street” (Reuters)
• News and information publisher Thomson Reuters reaffirmed its full-year outlook although it said the financial crisis hitting many customer banks would hurt the company in the short term (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

What will be the size of the U.S. television audience for the vice-presidential debate?

    The rise of casual video gaming may have grabbed the headlines over the past couple of years, but the more hardcore end of the market dominated at Europe’s biggest gaming convention in Leipzig last week.
    Apart from new iterations of popular karaoke-style games such as Activision’s Guitar Hero, Electronic Arts‘ RockBand and Sony’s SingStar, which arguably kick-started the trend of easy-to-play casual fare, the world’s biggest games publishers focused on products for their core audience.
    Upcoming release Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 was a case in point. Not only does the game involve sending dozens of types of futuristic military unit across apocalyptic landscapes, but EA was marketing it in part on the basis that one of the
actresses in it, Jenny McCarthy, is a former Playboy playmate of the year.
    Most publishers were playing it safe, focusing on sequels such as a new version of The Sims – the virtual doll’s house franchise which has sold over 100 million copies since launch in 200? — or movie tie-ins such as a game based on new James Bond film Quantum of Solace.
    True innovation was thin on the ground, at least on a whistle-stop tour view of the main publishers’ offerings. Ubisoft demoed a game in the same genre as Command and Conquer which could be fully voice-controlled — apparently a first for consoles — while Sony previewed LittleBigPlanet. This marries the hot theme of user-designed content (think YouTube or MySpace) to an age-old platforming mechanic, the basics of which that would be familiar to anyone who had played Nintendo’s Mario games.
    Cute sack-doll characters jump over flames and on to rising platforms, but the novelty is that most of the game, from the characters’ outfits and personalities to the landscapes over which they clamber can be modified by players and shared online.
    But for two of the other most hotly awaited games of the season, there was no news, albeit for opposite reasons. EA’s Spore, in which players guide a lifeform in the Darwinian struggle from primaeval soup to interplanetary conflict, is due out on Sept. 4 and had already been presented in near-final form at other events, so did not get a spot in EA’s main presentation.
    World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the next installment of the online role-playing game that has over 10 million subscribers — was available to play in an early form, but it remained unclear when the final version would be on sale. A spokesman for Activision unit Blizzard could not even confirm it would definitely be out before Christmas.

    * Where do you think gaming is going in the run-up to this year’s holiday season? Were you at the Leipzig Games Convention? Tell us what you think below.

Playboy Enterprises may not have a billion dollar skyscraper like the beleaguered brokerage firm Bear Stearns, but it does have the Playboy Mansion, and a steady revenue stream in the form of rent from founder Hugh Hefner.

Playboy’s annual report, released on Friday shows that Hef paid an estimated $700,000 in “rent and other benefits payable” to the company in 2007. The property — described as a “29-room mansion located on five and one-half acres in Los Angeles, California,” with no mention of the Grotto — must have some pretty sweet rent controls: He paid $1.1 million in 2005, and $800,000 in 2006.

As any casual Playboy observer knows, Hef has more than a few roommates. Since 2005, E! has aired “The Girls Next Door,” a reality show that stars three of his live-in girlfriends. More from the 10-K, first highlighted by footnoted.org:

Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, the stars of The
Girls Next Door on E! Entertainment Television, reside in the mansion with Mr.
Hefner. The value of rent, food and beverage and other personal benefits for the
use of the Playboy Mansion by Ms. Madison, Ms. Marquardt and Ms. Wilkinson is charged to Alta Loma Entertainment, our production company. The aggregate amount of these charges in 2007 was $0.4 million. In addition, each of Ms. Madison, Ms. Marquardt and Ms. Wilkinson receives payments for services rendered on our behalf, including appearance fees.

Oh, and about those rent controls:

The annual rent Mr. Hefner pays to us for his use of the Playboy Mansion is determined by independent experts who appraise the value of Mr. Hefner’s basic accommodations and access to the Playboy Mansion’s facilities. … Mr. Hefner’s usage of Playboy Mansion services and benefits is recorded through a system initially developed by the professional services firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and now administered by us, with appropriate modifications approved by the Audit and Compensation Committees of the Board of Directors.

(Photo: Playboy Mansion, Reuters)