Facebook Offers To Highlight Status Updates for Cash, Trefis Values at $82 Billion

According to a report by Trefis, Facebook

is offering to highlight your status updates for cash. In a research report published today, Trefis writes, "Facebook seems to be just as focused on its business as it is on its IPO. While it's still trying to figure out the social advertising puzzle and crack the mobile advertising market, it continues to find innovative ways to generate revenue on its platform. It is apparently testing a “Pay to Highlight” feature which lets users pay a few dollars to have their posts appear to more of their friends. Currently, only 12% of any user's friends see any specific status update on average. Facebook ensures that the desired status update reaches all of the user's friends." With Facebook's 900+ million active users and competitors like Google

, Twitter, LinkedIn

, Pinterest, Microsoft

and Yahoo

all vying for online advertising dollars, Trefis establishes an $82 billion valuation for the company. Facebook has opened trading today at $42.05.