At long last, the Holy Grail of Internet IPOs is here. Facebook filed Wednesday to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering.

In 2011, Facebook earned $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion. As of December 31, Facebook had 845 million daily active users.

The company crossed the line into profitability in 2009, five years after it launched in founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Facebook earned $229 million that year on sales of $777 million, and has remained profitable ever since. Advertising accounted for 85% of Facebook’s 2011 revenue, or almost $3.2 billion.

Facebook’s other revenue stream is its payment system for purchases within apps and games: Facebook Credits. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from those payments, and passes the remaining 70% on to the app developer. Those fees brought in $557 million for Facebook last year.

Revenue from Zynga, which makes FarmVille and other games played on Facebook, represented 12% of Facebook’s total revenue in 2011.

Another choice tidbit: In 2011, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg raked in a $500,000 base salary. But he requested — and will receive — only $1 per year in salary starting January 1, 2013.

Don’t feel too bad for Zuck, who remains the largest shareholder in the company he created. His total compensation in 2011 came to $1.48 million, according to Facebook’s calculations.

He was one of the lowest-paid among Facebook’s executive ranks. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg topped the list with a total package Facebook estimated at $30.9 million, almost all of it in stock.

Engineering VP Mike Schroepfer made an estimated $24.7 million — again, mostly in stock — while CFO David Ebersman collected an $18.7 million pay package.

It’s not yet known on which stock exchange Facebook will trade, through it said it plans to use the ticker symbol “FB.”
Facebook will likely re-file its paperwork several times over the coming months. Those updates will add more details and could even restate some of the financial information detailed in Wednesday’s filing.

How much Facebook is worth: In this initial paperwork, companies don’t declare how many shares they’re going to sell, or how much those shares will cost. Those details will be added in an updated filing shortly before trading begins.

Without that share price information, Facebook’s valuation is still speculative.

Facebook has its own guesses, though. The company said it conducted its own valuation of its stock at the end of each quarter, and as of December 31 determined it to be worth $29.73 a share.

Trading won’t begin for several months, as Facebook now has to field questions from regulators and court investors for its stock sale.

Most analysts estimate Facebook’s valuation will fall somewhere between $85 billion to $100 billion. But the value of Web companies can be extremely volatile.

A recent example: Zynga (ZNGA). The FarmVille maker’s IPO filing reported that it valued its shares in August 2011 at $17.20 each, which gave the company a valuation of $14 billion. But when Zynga went public in December, shares sold for just $10 — valuing the company at $7 billion.

Several other Internet companies made their public debuts in 2011, but the end of the year proved to be a turbulent time for the sector. Shares of Groupon (GRPN), Pandora (P), Zillow (Z), LinkedIn (LNKD) and Angie’s List (ANGI) all suffered steep double-digit losses for November, though most clawed back at least a bit in December or January.

Appalled by the rioting that has been sweeping across Britain this week, the government wants to find out if censoring social media sites could help prevent this from happening again.

Prime Minister David Cameron didn’t mention details of what that might mean in practice, only to say in a recalled Parliament this afternoon that the government was looking into “whether it was right” to stop people using social media to “plot” further disorder.

“Everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media,” he said. “Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.”

He added the ruling conservative government was:

“working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

Britain’s secretary Theresa May, is due to meet with representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerry in the coming weeks to discuss the responsibility of social media if they are used as a tool to fuel rioting.

Earlier today there was one of the first known instances of police arresting rioters for using social media to “incite violence.” Three people have been arrested on suspicion of using Twitter and Blackberry Messenger to incite violent disorder in Southampton,” police in Hampshire said.

Meanwhile Cameron’s comments have already stirred some debate about censorship.

“It would be wrong, sir,” social media commenter Jeff Jarvis said in a blog post. “Who is to say what communication and content should be banned from whom on what platform? On my Blackberry? My computer? My telephone? My street corner?”

“Beware, my friends,” Jarvis added. “When anyone’s speech is not free, no one’s speech is free.”

While we don’t agree with the riots, we hope that they come to a stop. We do agree with Jarvis’s statement and that Freedom of speech is a powerful thing and that blocking social media sites takes away that freedom.

Our friends over at LoveSocial.org just released a new video that depicts the power & impact of social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jsxICZFB2Q

On Thursday, Facebook unveiled their new high tech and futuristic-looking data center in Prineville, Oregon. Even more impressively, the project is open source, meaning Facebook will actually share what the company has learned about designing energy-reducing, cost-efficient computer servers and data centers.

Facebook claims their green data center uses 38 percent less energy to do the same work as its existing facilities, while costing 24 percent less – and they want other companies to adopt the technology.

The Facebook data center uses custom-designed servers, power supplies, server racks and battery backup systems to achieve an initial power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.07, compared to 1.5 for its existing facilities. In the winter, the data center will re-use hot aisle air to heat offices.

Facebook also announced the formation of the Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that it says will share best practices for creating the most economical and energy-efficient data centers. Facebook will start by publishing specifications and mechanical designs for hardware including motherboards, power supply, server chassis, server racks and battery cabinets. The specs can be found at www.opencompute.org.

Facebook is reportedly in talks to hire President Obama’s former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for a senior communications role, the New York Times reported.

No formal offer has been made yet to Gibbs, but after two years at the White House, the president’s ex-spokesman has high-level ties that could be attractive to Facebook as it prepares for the world’s largest-ever public offering — valued by some investors at more than $60 billion, according to The Times.

Gibbs would work under Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vp for global communications, marketing and public policy who joined the company from Google in 2008.

Gibbs, who left the White House in February after two years, and a spokesman for Facebook declined to comment, the paper said. Talks are at an early stage, it cited sources as saying.

The Times said Gibbs was planning to help set up President Obama’s re-election campaign before taking a private sector job, but Facebook is pressing him to consider the job more quickly.

Gibbs’ hiring would also move the former press secretary far from the White House as well as Obama’s re-election headquarters in Chicago. The company’s headquarters is located in Palo Alto, Calif.

Details of his possible pay package have not been discussed, but the paper said he would receive a cash salary and company shares ahead of the IPO, which could be the largest in history given that Facebook has recently been valued at as much as $65 billion.

Websites like Groupon and Living Social have exploded onto the scene in recent years. They help businesses raise their profiles through discount offers. Now, Facebook will soon start testing its own service in several U.S. cities: Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego.

The company already offers Facebook Deals through Facebook Places, its check-in service. Its new daily deal service will work with Deals, though it will be very hard for Facebook to steal first place from market leader Groupon. Still, whenever the social network enters a new market, it has one huge advantage: 600 million users and counting.

Daily-deal services supposedly account for a third of all the ads on Facebook. Clearly the social network wants to take down the competition, but it wants to make sure its generating that extra revenue before it does.

“Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find deals in the coming weeks,” the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said in statement today.

Facebook hopes to avoid pitfalls, such as those Groupon encountered when some small businesses were so overwhelmed by customer responses they could not keep up and ultimately suffered losses.

Facebook plans to sell the deals through its own sales team, as well as working with partners such as Gilt City, Home Run, Pop Sugar City, Tippr, KGB Deals, Plum District, Reach Local, Zozi, and Open Table.

With more than 600 million users, Facebook certainly has the critical mass and the social mojo to tap into the booming online deal market and compete with market leaders Groupon and LivingSocial. Facebook will showcase deals and encourage users to share those deals with friends. What’s going to lead to this program’s success is that users can “unlock” a deal and share that discount with friends. Facebook testing showed that people were more likely to buy a deal if one of their friends bought it first. It makes perfect sense: Getting that great deal on dinner for one just isn’t as fun if you can’t share it with others.

Six of the founders and investors behind Facebook have landed in the annual list of world’s top billionaires compiled by Forbes. Four of the names are new to the roster.

Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg clocked in at No. 52 with an estimated worth of $13.5 billion, up from 212 and $4 billion in 2010.

Co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, the youngest billionaire on the Forbes list at 26 (Moskovitz is eight days younger then Zuckerberg), Eduardo Saverin, and investors Sean Parker and Russian Yuri Milner are new to the ranks. Rounding out Forbes’ “Facebook Six” is investor Peter Thiel, who has moved down to 833 from 828, despite increasing his wealth to $1.5 billion from $1.2 billion.

This year, there are 20 billionaires under age 40, up from just eight last year. Zuckerberg comes in as the second-youngest billionaire, worth $13.5 billion, nearly five times as much as Moskovitz.

Facebook, a private Silicon Valley company, recently rounded up $1.5 billion in financing led by Goldman Sachs and Milner’s Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, suggesting it could be worth $50 billion and setting off a feeding frenzy among investors.

Facebook has about 600 million users and is a threat to more established big Web businesses such as Google and Yahoo for users’ time and advertising dollars.

An Egyptian man named Jamal Ibrahim was feeling so thankful that Facebook created a medium for organizing the Egyptian demonstrations that ultimately played a part in President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation from the post he held for 30 years, he named his newborn daughter Facebook Jamal Ibrahim.

The news was published in Egypt’s Al-Ahram, a government-owned news outlet. According to the English translation, “The girl’s family, friends, and neighbors in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the new born to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. Baby Facebook received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name.”

Facebook users are familiar with the popular option to proclaim their relationship status and freely change their personal information from “single,” “in a relationship,” “engaged,” “married” or the ever mysterious “it’s complicated.” Last week, Facebook also added two new options to its list of relationship statuses including “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership.”

Now there is an app for Facebook users who actually want keep tabs on their friend’s relationship statuses.

It’s called the “Breakup Notifier” and it allows you to go through your friends list and choose potential friends that you might be interested in. The app then puts your selected friends onto a list that notifies you if their relationship status ever changes.

In other words, if you are tired of hitting the refresh button desperately hoping that the object of your affection has suddenly become single, then you’ll love this: You will INSTANTLY be sent an email when the object of your desire changes their relationship status.

Dan Loewenherz, 24, the creator of “Breakup Notifier” and a developer based in Beverly Hills, Calif., said it took him just about four hours to build the application.

The tagline from the app’s Web site pretty much says it all: “You like someone. They’re in a relationship. Be the first to know when they’re out of it.”

The app had more than 100,000 users in under 24 hours, and now has more than 200,000 users.

JPMorgan is planning on starting a Social Media Fund of between $500 million and $750 million to invest in internet and digital media companies. Marketing materials were already sent to prospective investors two weeks ago.

The move comes as interest in social networking sites is increasing. Investor interest and valuations are surging for privately held Web companies like Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon.

Even before the digital companies are slated to go public, they have generated high interest among potential investors. Groupon raised $950 million from several large investment companies after it rejected a $6-billion offer from Google.

Goldman Sachs had gone one step ahead and invested $500 million in Facebook and has so far raised $1 billion. However, GS limited investments, excluding US investors, to avoid a possible problem with U.S. securities regulations.

This Tuesday, JPMorgan is scheduled to hold its yearly investor conference to review its businesses and plans for the next year.

Today Facebook launched a major redesign and expansion of functionality of its Pages for businesses, brands, media, and public figures. The new page layout will now match the user profile redesign, with a left-hand navigation panel replacing the tabs above the wall. Page admins will also be able to login as their Page, giving them access to Facebook and email notifications about activity on their Page, and other options.

The Page redesign does not affect the Page APIs, so FB developers don’t need to worry about their applications breaking. The expanded tab name space in the new navigation panel means developers can try using longer, more descriptive titles for when their application is installed as tab.

Below we give you a guided tour of what to expect from the upgrade. Showcase your latest photos just as you would on your regular profile page.

Navigation has also followed suite of the profile page. Basic nav returns to the left of the page.

Ability to filter the wall post by the page author or you can opt to see updates from everyone.

If you have the task of being a page administrator, you now have the ability to use Facebook as your page. This feature is aimed at increasing interactions with your users.

Take more control of your page.

Once a page has been upgraded you will instantly see the new format. Take a look at our updated Facebook Page. While you are stopping by, be sure to ‘Like’ our page.

Now that we gave you a brief introduction to the new pages, check out the official release from the Facebook development team below.

Official Facebook Release:
Better Communication
Many people have asked for better ways to keep up with activity on their Page. We are introducing a set of features to help manage your Page communication. Starting today, you can navigate and interact with other areas of Facebook as your Page. This means you can choose to receive notifications about fan activity, Like and comment on other Pages as your Page, and get your own News Feed where you can engage with the latest and most important news from other Pages you like.

More Opportunities for Expression
We are introducing new opportunities for Pages to share. We recently launched a new Profile design, to give users more ways to tell their stories with people they care about. Now, Pages will benefit from many of the same enhancements. Starting today, you can feature photos of your Page’s most recent experiences at the top of your Page. You can highlight other Pages you are connected with as well as the people who are managing your Page.

Improve Relevancy
Finally, we are very excited to announce some new features to make your Page even more engaging for users. The “Everyone” filter on the Wall provides a new way for people to see the most interesting posts first. We’ve also created a place for people to discover the friends and interests they have common with your Page.

We plan to develop even more features and improvements for Pages over the course of the coming months.

You can upgrade your Page starting today. To begin, take a live Tour of the new features. For more details and support, please visit our Pages Guide in the Resource Center and Help Center.