Social media is one of the fastest-growing areas of the web, and it is changing the way that consumers and businesses communicate. Already, some third-party companies like game developers and virtual gift companies are finding ways to generate revenue from social media. But can the heavyweights of social networking – the Facebooks and the Twitters of this world – become profitable? In this report, we look at which monetization strategies are proving successful and which aren’t. We also analyzed $25 billion worth of social media M&A and VC transactions over the past 27 months.