The much-awaited Facebook IPO, and probably the most hyped too, could take place as early as Wednesday. The world's No.1 social network site is looking to raise $10 billion by selling shares in an initial public offering (IPO), which will put the market value of the firm between $75 billion and $100 billion.
On Wednesday, the 7-year old tech sensation, which has grown without a hitch and currently boasts of 850 million-odd users, could be going public.
The Guardian has cited EMarketer, a research firm as saying, "Facebook has already overtaken Yahoo to become number one in online display advertising revenues, taking 16.3% of the market." EMarketer reckons Facebook's ad revenue will be $7 billion by 2013. And though, in comparison, Disney's revenues were over $40 billion last year, Facebook looks like a good bet for the future.
Meanwhile, though Facebook IPO has been drawing a lot of media attention, the question still remains whether the firm is actually worth up to $100 billion.
Now is time for Facebook to face the reality by presenting innovative idea, which can satisfy not only users but also investors and shareholder. For this, analysts speculate that Facebook will try to maximize targeted advertising.
"Catherine Tucker, a marketing and IT professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, expects Facebook to ramp up what she calls "social advertising" efforts, where ads are served up to users based on their friends' preferences," Guardian reported.
But this may bring out the privacy issue concerning personal data usage by Facebook.
