Facebook, the worlds largest social media site with 800 million users has finally filed with the Securities Exchange Comission to go public (Feb 1, 2012). The company has a bullish valuation of 75-100 billion dollars and is expected to raise $5-10 billion as soon as shares hit the market. Social media sites like Facebook play a dominant role in online marketing which is becoming part of this web 2.0 strategy. Very limited financial data is revealed, however in 2010 78% of their revenue was derived from online marketing. The site attracts a huge volume of traffic which drives its success in e-marketing. Companies are advertising on the site because they have access to the consumer interests and personal information of members. This allows companies to specifically target their audience.

Only time will tell whether this company has the ability to use this new source of equity capital to grow its online business model and generate significant returns for its shareholders. An interesting statistic will be to see how revenue with respect to online marketing changes throughout this process. This will be a very interesting company to follow as soon as shares start trading.