February 2 2012: The world's largest online social network, Facebook, has launched what will be the biggest Internet Initial Public Offering in the history of the US Silicon Valley: $5 billion . In its IPO filing Facebook has revealed that it now has 845 million users – almost half of the world's Internet users. It has for the firdt time reported $1 billion in profits on $3.7 billion revenue last year. "We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services”, says founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“It's a tectonic shift in the history of capitalism”, the San Jose Mercury News quotes Manuel Henriquez, CEO of Palo Alto-based investment fund Hercules Technology Growth Capital, which last month bought 300,000 shares of Facebook on the secondary markets for $10 million. "A college dropout, 27 years old, brings Wall Street to its knees." India has a particular interest in Facebook going public. With 43.49 million users it now home to the largest Facebook user base outside the US(152 million).  It has just overtaken Indonesia with 43.1 million. The India growth has been phenomenal, doubling in just one year.Facebook was launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.

Financial Chronicle: India now home to largest FB user base outside US http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/india-now-home-largest-fb-user-base-outside-us-459  
CBS News: Why Facebook's IPO shouldn't excite you http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57369940/why-facebooks-ipo-shouldnt-excite-you/