Eight years back when Mark Zuckerberg made the significant decision of launching his social networking website, little did he know that the decision was going to pay off in such a big way.

According to several leading news reports, Facebook may be filing for a long-awaited IPO as early as today (Wednesday 1st February 2012 – remember that date, it could well go down in history!).

The New York Times and CNBC report that Facebook is aiming to generate $5 billion worth revenue in its initial offering making it the largest global IPO ever offered by an internet based company. If this happens Facebook will leave behind Google’s (GOOG) $1.9 billion debut which is currently the largest U.S. Internet IPO.

The markets have responded with a sign of hope to this news since its announcement and there are high expectations that the Facebook IPO could make way for an influx of trading tech stocks at cheap values.

Market analysts predict that the social network will be worth $75 billion and $100 billion once it starts trading, however the actual figures will be available only after Facebook starts trading for a couple of months after filing for its first round of regulatory paperwork. So until then we are left to only speculate what Facebook’s future revenue and profitability could really be.

There is no doubt that the Facebook IPO is a hot property that many investors are already eying; if successful it will certainly build more confidence for investors in the dot-com and technology business. Facebook has long been a the support system for many small and independent app makers and gaming platforms like Zynga so needless to say a lot rides on Facebook filing for a successful IPO.

This news would explain why Facebook rolled out the Timeline profile template integrated with some 60 apps, at lightening speed over the last few weeks, because once Facebook is done with filing its S-1 paperwork, it will be forced to enter a “quiet period” — without product announcements, interviews or any other public statements.

Do you think Facebook is worth $100 billion?

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