Facebook IPO: $100bn self worth, and other interesting tidbits

Facebook's going public, and the $5 billion (£3.16 billion) IPO filing has revealed all sorts of juicy tid-bits about the colossal online social network.

For starters, the share prices Facebook is asking for (roughly $30/£19) would apparently make the company worth a piddly $100 billion (£63.22 billion) - which is even more than Eurogamer's worth!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's stake in that would be $28 billion (£17.7 billion). He's 27. It's not fair.

Facebook is so pricey because, according to the filing, 845 million people use the site - 483 million of them every day.

That's how Facebook made $3.7 billion (2.34 billion) predominantly from (85 per cent) advertising last year. And $1 billion of that was profit.

Mind you, a massive $444 million (12 per cent) came courtesy of Zynga - the social gaming giant that exploded on Facebook through FarmVille, Mafia Wars and beyond.

When a player splashes out on Zynga game content, Facebook takes 30 per cent. What happens if Zynga goes it alone?

Some observers worry that Facebook will be pressured to pry deeper into users' private lives, so as to create better targeted ads.

"Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected."

Mark Zuckerberg, founder, Facebook

Facebook's arrival on the public stock market won't necessarily be a rip-roaring success. Because shares have been offered behind closed doors relatively freely, and because Facebook is eight years old, there's a feeling that what money company's stock offered has already been made. The same thing apparently happened with Zynga and Groupon, which didn't get the share price they predicted. And Wall Street looked down its nose at them as a result, it's said.

In a rousing IPO statement, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote: "Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected."

He banged on about Facebook creating "a more open culture" that "leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others". He talked about upending the traditional spread of information from top-down to peer-to-peer.

Zuckerberg said Facebook could help establish more "authentic" businesses because of open communication with lots of potential customers. He also mentioned how Facebook can be a strong political tool where voices can be heard in such volume "they cannot be ignored".

Information sourced from Wired, The Guardian, BBC News.