Facebook stock ends above $50 for the first time ever

Social network's stock has nearly doubled since the end of July

I think it's safe to say that the Facebook is officially back. The company's stock is skyrocketing, which could be excellent news for Twitter.

The stock, which hit an all time high of $45 just two weeks ago, was able to top $50 for the first time ever on Thursday, ending the day up 1.88%, or 93 cents, to $50.39 a share.  It has now risen 80% since the beginning of the year, when it was prices at $28 a share.

Facebook has seen a remarkable turnaround in its stock price since posting its second quarter 2013 earnings at the end of July. Since that time, when the stock was trading at $26.51 a share, it has skyrocketed nearly 90%.

In that earnings report, Facebook  posted revenue of $1.181 billion for the quarter, beating Wall Street's estimates of $1.62 billion, and up 53% from $1.18 billion in the second quarter of 2012.

Investors were impressed by the gains the company reported in mobile, in both revenue and users.

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.15 billion as of June 30, 2013, an increase of 21% year-over-year, while mobile MAUs were 819 million as of June 30, 2013, an increase of 51% year-over-year. Meanwhile daily active users (DAUs) were 699 million on average for June 2013, an increase of 27% year-over-year, while mobile DAUs were 469 million on average for June 2013.

Facebook's percentage of mobile ad revenue has been increasing every quarter: mobile accounted for 30% of that revenue in Q1,, up from 23% in the fourth quarter of 2012, and up approximately 14% in the third quarter.

And that mobile ad revenue is set to explode this year, according to a report from eMarketer released in June.

The social network is set to see its mobile ad revenue shoot up over 333%, from $470 million to 2.04 billion. That will more than double its worldwide share, from 5.35% to 12.9%.

What does this mean for Twitter

Looking at Twitter's decision to IPO, its hard to not read every move as a comment on what Facebook did, or did not do, for its own road to going public.

There are some very clear lessons to be taken from the terrible time that Facebook had for its first year, and the success that it has seen over the last six months or so: mobile really matters. And so does proving that it can make money off of the platform.

In March of last year, Twitter debuted its self-service ad platform to give small businesses access to Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts to help them grow their business. The program was opened up to all U.S. businesses in April. 

The same eMarketer report said that Twitter's ad revenue will go from $140 million to $310 million this year, or from a 1.57% marketshare to 1.95%. 

What Facebook's success also means is that investors are taking social media seriously, and seeing it as a long term business prospect. That is a sign that bodes well for Twitter going forward.

(Image source: https://photobucket.com)