While You Were on Facebook...

It's no secret that Facebook.com has become a favorite tool for procrastination among students trying to stave off that lab report until the last possible moment.

But now the social-networking site is fast picking up pace among the post-college crowd, and those users have more than their own time to waste. When employees while away the workday posting photos and tweaking profile pages, what's the impact on the company's bottom line?

Internet security company SurfControl crunched the numbers to find out juuuuust how much money Mark Zuckerberg and his ultra-sticky site are pulling from the pockets of companies every year.

The firm calculated figures for Australia, where Facebook membership still amounts to only 230,000 users out of the site's 31 million members globally. Based on assumptions about wages and time spent browsing, SurfControl estimated that the annual cost to Australian industry is 5 billion Australian dollars ($4 billion).

If SurfControl's figures are accurate and Americans are in fact as easily distracted as our brothers and sisters down under apparently are, the dollar toll could be one hundred times worse for U.S. industry. The vast majority of Facebook users call America home, with Canada and Britain ranking second and third in overall users.

Take SurfControl's big number with a grain of salt. There are lots of outstanding questions that employers need answered before blocking Facebook's URL in a fit of financial panic. Such as: how much time spent on Facebook is merely replacing other web entertainment, whether employees are clocking longer days due to their dalliance, and if the opportunity for leisure makes time spent working more productive.

Liz Gunnison