Investors were left guessing Wednesday night following Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) first-quarter earnings report.

FB registered a slight beat on revenues, posting $1.46 billion vs. expectations of $1.44 billion. However, the bottom line was light, with adjusted profits of 12 cents per share coming in a penny shy. The reaction? Fractional moves up and down, at least in the early hours of postmarket trading.

Facebook has been investing heavily in its mobile efforts, such as with ad platforms and new apps. On this front, the company is starting to see some amount of payback — on a quarter-over-quarter basis, the mobile ad business grew from 23% of revenues to 30% (for a total of $375 million).

Another positive: FB continues to attract scores of users. Monthly active mobile users spiked 54% year-over-year to 751 million — more than triple the figure tallied in Q1 2011. Also of note: Facebook currently has about 189 million mobile-onlymonthly users.

On the conference call, Mark Zuckerberg provided a couple other interesting tidbits. One that stuck out was that Instagram now has 100 million monthly users and is growing at a faster rate than Facebook did at this level.

Facebook also is becoming a core part of the overall mobile experience. Keep in mind that 81 of the 100 highest-grossing Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone apps are integrated into the platform, and half of them are using Facebook ads.

Not all is well on the mobile front, however. Its recent Home app — essentially a homepage forGoogle (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices — is getting pounded early on in the form of poor ratings and comments on the Google Play app store.

Naturally, Zuckeberg says it’s too early to determine Facebook Home’s success or failure.

Today, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) threw the tech world and Wall Street a curveball by announcing that the much-anticipated Facebook Phone was, in fact, not a phone at all.

Instead, the world was treated to “Facebook Home” — a highly integrated Android app that will be available for download on April 12 and also integrated into a new HTC phone — the “First,” which will retail for $99.99.

(Though, to be more accurate, it’s Facebook that Zuckerberg is trying to put at the center of mobile phones.)

Here’s how the app works: When you launch an Android phone, you will get instant access to a Facebook “Cover Feed,” which will feature large updates from your friends that you can swipe to make comments. Chat will now be through a system called “chatheads,” in which photos pop up directly on the screen and allow you to tap it to access chat. And in addition to the various Facebook features, you’ll also have access to your Android apps from this interface, such as the Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chrome browser.

Wall Street seems to be impressed (or maybe relieved that Facebook isn’t actually building a physical phone), as FB shares have headed about 3% higher.

Still, Home is a clear sign that Facebook realizes it has a new threat: the emerging chat app operators. These include hyper-growers like Snapchat, Line, Kik, Whatsapp, KakaoTalk and WeChat. They have become extremely popular as users want to have real-time, private communications with friends — not necessarily public status updates.

In light of Facebook’s massive user base — which includes over 650 million mobile users — Home should get immediate traction. But the company still has a problem in that it seems to be losing its cool factor. And by suddenly providing a huge validation of chat programs, it’s just raising awareness of the category — and possibly alerting users to other approaches than the traditional Facebook way.

Eduardo Saverin — a Harvard student who helped Mark Zuckerberg create Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) — recently sounded off about his bullishness in the Asian startup scene.

In a recent interview at a Wall Street Journal conference in Singapore, Saverin said he considers Asia a tremendous growth opportunity for the Internet and mobile as the region becomes an increasingly massive consumer market.

He also discussed Facebook. Despite the falling out that eventually led to his departure from the company, and even the U.S. — he renounced his citizenship and now lives in Singapore — he has no ill will toward Zuckerberg and praised his stewardship of Facebook.

Still, Saverin is concerned about the risks involved in the company growing too fast; namely, that it could harm the user — especially as it aggressively moves to monetize the platform — and cause issues on the privacy front.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Connect allows users to log in with their Facebook credentials on third-party systems, and it’s become massive.

However, yesterday the system went haywire — at least for a few minutes. Facebook Connect suddenly redirected users from sites like Yelp (NYSE:YELP), MSNBC and the Huffington Post to Facebook.com. A message popped up that said: “An error occurred. Please try again later.”

In the end, though, most websites rely on other technology platforms because of the low costs and access to useful features. It’s a smart strategy … but it is far from fool-proof. The good news is that Facebook usually corrects its problems extremely fast.

Re-targeting has been a long-time practice in the online advertising biz. It essentially displays ads for sites that users have already visited. The idea is that there should be a higher conversion rate because there is some level of interest.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) recently entered this market with its Facebook Exchange (FBX) platform. While it should be a nice money maker, it has inevitably generated controversy from organizations like the Council of Better Business Bureau.

To help mute things, Facebook has made some tweaks to its FBX program. If a user hovers the mouse over x-shaped icon, an AdChoices message will pop up. It will say that Facebook engages in ad tracking.

That’s it!

True, you can opt-out of an ad … but that has been a standard feature for Facebook.

All in all, the company’s move is somewhat half-hearted. But then again, to keep providing a free service, Facebook needs to pay the bills … and this means there will always be annoying ads.

On the fourth-quarter earnings call, Facebook‘s (NASDAQ:FB) Mark Zuckerberg put things into perspective: “Today there’s no argument. Facebook is a mobile company.”

Hey, remember when Facebook went public back in May, and there was much alarm about its mobile business? Well, that’s a thing of the past. The fact is Zuckerberg has pulled off an impressive transformation.

But Facebook has also been landing mega-campaigns. For example, a holiday effort with Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) resulted in about 50 million add impressions. Michael Kors (NYSE:KORS) also ran a major campaign.

A key to Facebook’s success has been an obsessive focus on engineering. As a result, the core mobile app is now much better — and faster.

Facebook will certainly still face challenges. A major risk is that the company will alienate its users with too many ads. This is especially problematic with mobile devices because of the small screen size (it’s not easy to ignore the ads!).

But on the earnings call, Zuckerberg stressed that he’s focused on making ads relevant and seamless with the experience. And so far, it seems to be working. In Q4, Facebook attracted 680 mobile monthly active users. Oh, and about 157 million of them accessed the service via their mobile devices exclusively.

Zuckerberg also made it clear that his mobile strategy won’t involve building a phone. Let’s face it, the market is already crowded, with fierce rivals like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung. Even near-dead operators are making comebacks, such as Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and BlackBerry(NASDAQ:RIMM), formerly Research In Motion.

Really, does the world really need another phone?

Probably not. And it doesn’t matter for Facebook. It has plenty more room to find creative ways to monetize mobile. And it could be much more than just advertising. Consider that Facebook has been rolling out various e-commerce properties, such as Gifts. These could provide a nice source of mobile payment revenues.

Then there’s Graph Search. By allowing people to search for restaurants and other types of merchants — with the results based on location information and recommendations — the technology could break into the massive local market. Again, this could be another healthy revenue stream.

For the most part, Zuckerberg is building a mega-mobile platform, which will allow for revenue streams that span across advertising, payments, e-commerce and local. All of these are multibillion markets that are growing at strong rates. More important, with Facebook’s massive traffic, it’s a good bet the company could become a key player in all of these categories.

Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) botched IPO seems to be a thing of the past. Since early November, the company’s shares are up a sizzling 63%.

Investors are excited about renewed growth, especially as Facebook focuses on monetizing its massive mobile traffic. And, as I’m sure you know, after the market closes today, we’ll get more details on the company’s efforts. Facebook is scheduled to report its Q4 results.

Much of the attention will again be on the trends in mobile advertising, though … and it’s a good bet investors will not be disappointed. Keep in mind that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) posted hefty growth rates for their mobile businesses for Q4. Plus, Facebook launched a massive mobile ad campaign with Walmart (NYSE:WMT) during the holiday season, which involved around 50 million ads.

In the third quarter, Facebook was already seeing traction with its mobile business. Monthly active mobile users spiked by 60% to 604 million and revenues hit around $150 million.

Mobile is not everything, still. Investors will also want to get an update on Facebook’s Gifts e-commerce program (this came from the acquisition of Karma). It is still in the experimental phase but could be a big revenue driver.

Facebook has also recently launched several other features that could bolster its e-commerce ambitions. One is Collections, which is similar to Pinterest. It allows users to promote certain products on their pages.

Then, there is the recently unveiled Graph Search, which allows users to ask questions based on recommendations from their friends. In other words, it can help with finding restaurants, a date or a funny photo.

Perhaps the only negative for Facebook is its Payments business. For the most part, it is tied to social gaming. Unfortunately, as seen with companies like Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), the business has been slowing down lately.

Hopefully, mobile growth should more than make up for the shortfall. Keep an eye out for the report after the bell today.

Over the weekend, you may have received an email about getting $10 from Facebook(NASDAQ:FB). While such messages are usually spam or scams, this one is actually legit.

It’s part of a legal settlement over Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories” system, which based ads on the Likes of users — without their permission or payment. The company has set aside $20 million in a fund to pay the obligations.

But of course, there are some important extra details. For example, about $8 million will go to attorney’s fees. This is always the first priority.

Oh yeah, and the claimants may not necessarily get $10. The amount will depend on how many respond. If a ton do so — which seems likely — then there will be no distribution if the average claim is below $5. In this case, the $12 million will go to various privacy charities.

Now, if you still want to sign up, you can do so even if you deleted the email. There’s a Web form where you can make your claim. The deadline is May 2.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) may look like a fairly straightforward application. But behind the scenes is a tremendous infrastructure, which needs to manage over 1 billion users.

So, Facebook recently launched a new server technology called Group Hug. And it looks like a game-changer.

The technology is a new type of circuit board, which allows the mixing of chips from various manufacturers like Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) or ARM Holdings (NASDAQ:ARMH). Ultimately, it should lower the cost of servers because buyers won’t be locked in to a certain vendor.

But Facebook has gone even further by making the technology open-source through an organization called the Open Compute Project (OCP). This means it’s freely available.

Why do this? First of all, Facebook doesn’t care about selling servers. Besides, the company wants to encourage more innovation for server technology. That’s much more likely if the technology is easy to customize and adapt. Keep in mind that OCP already has over 50 members, including biggies like EMC (NYSE:EMC), SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) and yes, Intel and ARM.

The organization won’t be limited to just circuit board technology. Instead, the mandate is fairly broad, with the mission of finding efficiencies for data centers, such as with storage and virtualization.

That’s all extremely helpful for Facebook, especially as it continues to introduce data-intensive features like search and messaging.

As expected, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has added a free calling feature to its Messenger app for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS devices. It’s available only to users in the U.S. and Canada — so far. The calls can be made over WiFi or data connections.

The mobile voice market has become a commodity. Even the major carriers like AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) mostly care about selling data plans nowadays.

However, the Messenger service could be a serious threat to VoIP operators, such as Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Skype and Vonage (NASDAQ:VG). Facebook is likely to get substantial uptake from its massive user base, who certainly like to chat with friends!

And yes, Messenger is a highly popular app, ranked No. 17 on Apple’s App Store. With free calling, it’s a good bet that downloads will get a boost.