The pace at which Facebook has penetrated the social media landscape is simply astonishing. From a niche college social network to one of the most popular destinations of the web, Facebook has influenced the very fabric of the web.

First it was the like button which gave Facebook too much data on which websites people visit, the behavioral data on how people share content across the world wide web and how that data blends into Facebook’s social graph and demographics.

From the past few days Facebook is constantly advertising an alleged Yahoo! Answers competitor below its advertising sidebar titled – “Get a Facebook Sneak Peek” which asks the user to apply as a beta tester for upcoming Facebook products.

After clicking through the link you’re taken to page which states that Facebook is in a process to launch a brand new product which will be as exciting as Facebook photos and Facebook events. In case you didn’t know, Facebook is the world’s largest photo sharing website (storing more than 15 billion photos) ahead of Flickr (hosting about 4 billion images).

Facebook is directly taking an aim on Yahoo! Answers which is a massive community-driven, user-generated Q&A (question and answer) content site. It is also one of the most successful product in Yahoo! arsenal.

I think opening a Q&A site is very intelligent from Facebook’s perspective given that there are more than 400 million active users of which 50% log in to Facebook everyday! Also, the user engagement of Facebook is greater than any other site on the web.

To get things started Facebook has made it mandatory for users “to submit 3 great sample question and answers” and that they must be provocative. These “mandatory requirements” will surely help Facebook get the initial surge of content that is required to make any user-driven content site successful.

Once the product is launched, Facebook will become a stronger destination with increased time spent onsite, increased number of pageviews and more content to place relevant social ads on. Which ultimately means more money for Facebook!

P.S: Ironically, Yahoo! Answers recently celebrated its 10 millionth answer! I wonder if they could continue celebrating like this once Facebook launches its not-so-secret Q&A product!