Undeterred by the growth seen by the new Google+, Facebook (News - Alert) continues to earn a lot of revenue.

Reuters reported this week that Facebook doubled its revenue to $1.6 billion during the first six months in 2011. Facebook also earned net income of $500 million, Reuters (News - Alert) said.

“If true, the massive boost in revenue is another indication of Facebook’s growing dominance in the advertising space,” comments VentureBeat. “With over 750 million users and an estimated one-trillion page views per month, a variety of companies are turning to Facebook for advertising — especially from the daily deals industry.”

The increases may be attributed in part to ad spending from daily deals startups like Groupon and LivingSocial (News - Alert), VentureBeat adds.

In comparison, Facebook earned $355 million in net income during the first nine months of 2010 on revenue of $1.2 billion, according to Goldman Sachs documents cited by Reuters.

"Facebook's stronger results come as investors have pushed its valuation to roughly $80 billion in private markets, with many industry observers expecting the world's No. 1 Internet social network to go public in 2012," according to a report from The Atlantic Wire.

Facebook may go public by the first quarter of 2012, when the company could be valued at more than $100 billion, TMCnet reported earlier this year.

Facebook raised $1.5 billion from investors in January, such as Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies. In January it had a $50 billion valuation, TMCnet said.

In addition, Facebook represented almost a third of U.S. online Internet display ad impressions during June, according to The Atlantic Wire. That is more than the combined total of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google (News - Alert) and AOL, according to data from comScore cited by Reuters.

But Facebook is more than ads. "Facebook also gets a 30 percent cut of sales of virtual goods, such as digital cars or animals, that enhance the experience in social games such as Zynga's (News - Alert) FarmVille," Atlantic Wire says. Facebook is expected to introduce new features soon, including music services.

In a related matter, Google launched Google+, a social network, in June and it gained some 10 million users during its first two weeks. Google+ features games, such as Zynga Poker and Rovio's Angry Birds. Google+ may soon become a more serious rival for Facebook.

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