Facebook has recently announced their initial public offering (IPO), which means they are going to open up Facebook to the public stock market. In other words, you will be able to buy Facebook stocks and own some of the company. Currently the social network is worth between $75-$100 billion dollars! This IPO will put Facebook on board as the largest U.S. stock market debuts of all time. The question is, will you invest your money into Facebook stock?

The debut expects to raise an additional $10 billion dollars when they start selling shares this spring. There is no absolute certainty as to how much each share will cost, but there are many rumors going around that the price per share will be near the mid-$50′s. Some sources estimate that the price will be north of $100 per share. You can read up more about the price per share from an article by Forbes magazine. It seems that the best time to buy shares is at the beginning of the IPO. When the amount of share investors start increasing the value of Facebook will start increasing as well.

So, how is this IPO going to affect Facebook users? Are users going to start seeing a lot more Ads cluttering up their social space?  One thing that is certain is that the company will have to try hard to keep their users and stockholders equally happy. The stockholders want ways to increase revenue; whereas, the users still want a productive and fun online social network where they can share photos and video, play games, and stay connected with family and friends.

How does Facebook plan on generating more revenue after opening up to the public? There has been talk about the new Facebook Ad API. Perhaps they have some big plans with their new Ad platform. Maybe we might see Facebook start creating an Adsense type of service? Or perhaps they plan on generating more revenue from their fairly new virtual currency program.

Last year Facebook released Facebook credits, defined as being similar to tokens at an arcade or amusement park. These credits can be used to purchase apps, games, and even in-game add-ons. Facebook is recently offering users to get $4 of credit for only $1, you can read about this free cash enticement from an article by TechCrunch. The idea behind this discount is to get users to enter their credit card or PayPal information. This way users can purchase apps and games in a similar fashion to the way Apple users (without even putting much thought into it) search their App Store and make one button purchases. Currently only about 5% of Facebook users are using Facebook credits. If they can increase this percentage, it would benefit stockholders and developers significantly.

This year is going to be an exciting time for Facebook and their future stockholders. Do you plan on being a part of it?