Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has said that gaining more users and expanding the website is more important than making a profit.
Zuckerberg, who is in the UK for a conference about the future of web applications, told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that "growth is primary, revenue is secondary".
He said that he was giving Facebook three years to establish what the "optimum model" was for turning a profit, but that it wasn't his main priority.
"What every great internet company has done is figure out a way to make money that matches what they are doing on the site.
I don't think that social networks can be monetised in the same way that search did," said Zuckerberg. "But on both sites people find information valuable. I'm pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are already experimenting.
One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. "In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today."
Microsoft, which last year bought a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook, may be surprised to hear that news. It paid $240 million (£120 million) for its share in the social-networking site, effectively valuing the company at $15 billion (£7.5 million). Facebook has suffered something of a "brain drain" in recent months, with several top executives quitting the company.
Among the most high-profile to part company with the social-networking site is Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook's co-founder, who has left to set up a business-focused social utility in a similar vein to LinkedIn.
Zuckerberg also confirmed that Facebook would be embedding Microsoft's Live Search search bar in the website in the coming months, allowing people to search the web from inside Facebook, instead of having to navigate away from the site.
However, Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that this was turning Facebook into a 'web operating system'. "I think that expression is overused," he said. "Right now, web search is the starting point for most people.
But as time goes on there will be more and more applications as starting points. Web search will not necessarily be the centre of the internet forever. I don't know if a social network will be that point, but I think that the people will use more ways to access the information."
He said that mobile was one of the biggest growth areas for his website, saying that they were seeing a shift towards people sharing photos taken on their mobile phones, and using their handsets to update their status five times a day.
Zuckerberg also announced a new contest to find the biggest "Facebook champion".
Entrants are asked to submit a short essay, selection of photos and a video explaining how Facebook has changed their lives or made a positive social impact.
The first prize winner will be able to choose between a personal cash prize of 1,000 euros or a donation of 3,000 euros from Facebook to a charitable cause of their choice.
Facebook remains the second most popular website in the United Kingdom, according to Hitwise, but its rate of growth is slowing. Of the 10.5 million websites visited by UK internet users in September, Facebook took a 3.16 per cent market share, second only to Google.
And although visitor numbers to Facebook continue to grow, it's at a much slower rate than in previous years - traffic to the site increased just four per cent this year between August and September, compared to 50 per cent in the same period last year.
