Facebook has been playing games with the public for a while now regarding its intention to file for an IPO with speculations running rampant in the last year, but that is about to change.  Facebook is about to file its IPO paper according to the Wall Street Journal as early as Wednesday, February 1, 2012.  And there have been many speculations as to what the company will be worth once it starts regular trading.  In the business world, numbers are being thrown around in the range of $75 billion to $100 billion dollars.  However, there is no way that Facebook should be worth that much with no hard data to back it up and anyone thinking otherwise has something to gain from this hype.

Let's look at Facebook impressive numbers with over 650 million users around the world participating in the social network, the site has great potential to make money.  There is no argument about that, however, we have to remember that Facebook is really about people sharing and engaging with one and another, not a site for business. People who use the site do not want to be sold to in that way as it's an intrusion of their privacy. We can forgive the Google model with their advertising program with their Adsense and Adword because they are targeted to the user and business owner in a way that will be a win-win situation.  However, with Facebook, there is the idea of a family unit on the site and no one wants to be engaged in business activities with your family in mind.

Morgan Stanley has been chosen by Mark Zuckerberg to be the lead with the other usual cast of of investment bankers such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and others to do the offering.  They expect to fetch between $5 to $10 billion on the IPO which will help them to do battle with Google, Yahoo and other players out there.

Until Facebook become a company like Microsoft or IBM with their proven business model and longevity, you should think about spending your money elsewhere otherwise remember MySpace.