Facebook, the social network with 800 million users worldwide, is expected to file as early as Wednesday to sell stock on the open market. Its debut is likely to be the most talked-about initial public offering since Google in 2004. 
 
 FILE - In this May, 26, 2010 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the social network site's new privacy settings in Palo Alto, Calif. Zuckerberg turns up at business conventions in a hoodie.... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Menlo Park, California-based company expects to raise as much as $10 billion, though some accounts say it could be less than that. At $10 billion, the company would be valued at $75 billion to $100 billion. 
 
 The highly anticipated documents Facebook files with the Securities and Exchange Commission will reveal how much it intends to raise from the stock market, what it plans to do with the money and details on the company's financial performance and future growth prospects. 
 
 A stock usually starts trading three to four months after the filing. 
 
 Regular investors and IPO watchers are anticipating some kind of twist _ perhaps a provision for the 800 million users of Facebook, a company that promotes itself as all about personal connections, to get in on the action. 
 
 After all, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is anything but a conformist. He turns up at business conventions in a hoodie. "Cocky" is the word used to describe him most often, after "billionaire." He was Time's person of the year at 26. So when he takes Facebook public, why would he follow the Wall Street rules? 
 
 "Pandemonium is what I expect in terms of demand for this stock," says Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, an advisory firm. "I don't think Wall Street would want to anger Facebook users." 
 
 The most successful young technology companies have a history of doing things differently. Google's IPO prospectus contained a letter from its founders to investors that said the company believed in the motto "Don't be evil." 
 
 Facebook declined to comment, but Reena Aggarwal, a finance professor who has studied IPOs at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, believes Zuckerberg will emulate Google's philosophy, at least in principle. 
 
 Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted an IPO accessible to all investors, and said so in their first regulatory filing. Facebook may say something similar when it files to declare its intention to sell stock publicly. 
 
 Along with Wall Street investment banks, Google used a Dutch auction, named for a means of selling flowers in Holland, to sell its shares. It took private bids and allowed investors to say how many shares they wanted and what they were willing to pay. 
 
 The process wasn't smooth, though, and Google had to slash its expected offer price at the last minute. If you bought at the IPO, for roughly $85 a share, you still did well: Google closed Tuesday at $580. 
 
 More recently, when it filed for an IPO last June, Groupon, which emails daily deals on products and services to its members, added a letter from its 30-year-old founder, Andrew Mason. 
 
 "We are unusual and we like it that way," the letter said. "We want the time people spend with Groupon to be memorable. Life is too short to be a boring company." 
 
 It's almost become conventional for tech companies to include an unconventional letter when they make their stock market debut. It's widely expected that Zuckerberg, in the very least measure of showmanship, will write one. 
 
 But IPO watchers wonder whether there might be a provision specifically designed to give the little-guy investor, even the casual Facebook user who doesn't invest, a piece of the debut. 
 
 "There is a feeling that there will be something unique in store for Facebook users," Aggarwal says. 
 
 When most companies go public, they let Wall Street investment banks handle everything, with the sweet ground-floor stock price reserved for big institutional investors. 
 
 But that probably won't do for Facebook, created in a Harvard University dorm room eight years ago. Or Zuckerberg, whose antiestablishment credentials include spurning a $15 billion takeover offer from Microsoft. 
 
 Few expect Zuckerberg to offer a Dutch auction because of the Google experience. But he is at least as unorthodox as Google's founders. People expect him to be in the driver's seat on Wall Street, rather than hand over the controls to bankers. 
 
 Facebook is a vital part of people's Internet lives and the most successful company in the history of social media. Its closest competitor, Google+, has less than a tenth the active membership _ 60 million people. 
 
 "While there is no such thing as untouchable, Facebook is getting near there, with even Google imitating it," says Sweet, of IPO Boutique. 
 
 In "really hot IPOs," 90 percent of the shares go to institutional investors and 10 percent to everyday investors, Sweet says. It's a perk for the banks' biggest clients, like Fidelity Investments or T. Rowe Price or hedge funds. 
 
 The funds pay big commissions to the banks for regularly trading large blocks of stocks or bonds. Those relationships are deep and long-lasting _ and lucrative for the banks. The funds expect to be rewarded. 
 
 But Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the banks expected to guide the Facebook IPO, are in an awkward place: They don't want to tick off 800 million Facebook users _ but they don't want to tick off Fidelity, either. 
 
 Most IPOs are underpriced, and the stock usually shoots up the first day. Lucky large investors get the basement price and usually a big payday if they sell on the first day. Smaller investors buy on the open market, after the price has spiked, and pay more. 
 
 And most early investors do sell. One university research paper found that about 70 percent of the new stock changes hands in the first two days. Groupon introduced 35 million shares, but on the first day its shares were traded almost 50 million times. 
 
 Ann Sherman, associate professor and IPO expert at DePaul University, raised the possibility that Facebook could set aside a portion of its shares for the small investor and use a lottery system if there is a lot of demand. 
 
 She says the U.S. is the only country without IPO rules that put traditional investors on an equal footing. 
 
 "Given that this is such a huge and popular IPO, I've been hoping that Facebook would use this opportunity to try a new method to bring in retail investors _ a public offer where shares are set aside for only individual investors," Sherman says. 
 
 But Zuckerberg will also probably be careful how he plays his cards. He doesn't want to anger Facebook users, but his primary goal is to raise money. 
 
 The recent experience of Groupon's faltering IPO holds tough lessons for young entrepreneurs. After analysts started questioning its accounting, Groupon had to amend its regulatory filing several times. 
 
 Trying to salvage the IPO, founder Mason shed his trademark jeans and T-shirt and donned a suit. He dropped the irreverent talk and spoke about the company's growth prospects at the IPO "roadshow" to impress investors. 
 
 Other companies have encountered problems when they went public and tried to reward customers. Upstart Internet phone company Vonage wanted to give customers a chance to buy up to 15 percent of its 31 million shares at its IPO at $17 apiece. 
 
 But when the shares fell 13 percent on the first day of trading, many of its small investors that had put in orders to buy didn't want to pay the offer price. It gained the dubious title of one of the worst IPOs that year, something Facebook wants to avoid. 
 
 It's also more expensive to sell shares to many people. When thousands of small investors want to buy in, it becomes a logistical nightmare to make sure each investor gets a prospectus with all the important information. 
 
 Banks like large investors because it costs about the same to process an order of 50 shares as 50,000. But William Hambrecht, founder and CEO of WR Hambrecht & Co., a firm that runs IPO auctions, says companies that value their customers benefit in the long run. 
 
 He gives the example of Boston Beer, maker of Samuel Adams, which went public in 1995. Its founder, James Koch, wanted to reward the people who made his company successful: the buyers of Sam Adams. 
 
 Koch set aside a quarter of his shares for the small investor. The deal was a big success and attracted more interest from his beer drinkers than there were shares available. Some people left out were dissatisfied. 
 
 Hambrecht says about two-thirds of the investors who bought those shares still owned the stock two years after the IPO. Even today, about a third still own it. Hambrecht says that's because these investors appreciate the company's product. 
 
 "Our argument has always been that true buyers of your stock ought to be your own customer base," says Hambrecht. "As the great investor Peter Lynch said: Invest in what you know." ||||| SAN FRANCISCO _ Dressed in his trademark hoodie and jeans, Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg kicked off a cross-country road show to pitch his company’s initial public stock offering. 
 
 Hundreds of institutional investors stood in long lines Monday to pile into a ballroom at New York’s Sheraton Hotel to hear the billion-dollar pitch from the 27-year-old chief executive before his company’s hotly anticipated IPO. The meeting was closed to the media. 
 
 Facebook is trying to build excitement for the IPO that in a few weeks could value the company at more than $96 billion. That would make it the largest offering to come out of Silicon Valley. The Menlo Park, Calif., company said last week that it would offer 337.4 million shares at $28 to $35 each. 
 
 Investors expect that price range to jump as the road show makes its way across the nation, including stops in Boston and Chicago. Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion in its IPO. It’s expected to price the offering May 17 and begin trading the next day. The shares will be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol FB. 
 
 The presentation was more than an hour late in starting and began with a slickly produced video, which frustrated some would-be investors, who say they only got the opportunity to ask eight questions. 
 
 Zuckerberg was accompanied by Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman, in suit and tie, and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, in business attire. They fielded questions about Facebook’s slowing revenue growth and its $1 billion purchase of photo-sharing firm Instagram. 
 
 The executives said they were confident that Facebook’s growth would continue. Zuckerberg called Instagram a “good deal” and said he would buy Instagram again. 
 
 “All in all, it wasn’t extremely penetrating,” said one investor, who added that he had never seen anything like the heightened security at the Facebook event. 
 
 Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Herman Leung expects Facebook’s revenue to grow 40 percent this year and 33 percent in 2013, he said in a note to investors Monday. He said the $28 to $35 range was a “compelling entry point” for investors. 
 
 “It’s generally agreed upon amongst investors that the Facebook IPO will be very successful and Facebook as a company will be very successful,” said Anthony Valencia, a media analyst at TCW Group who attended the event. “What is not agreed upon is how much upside there will be for new investors.” 
 
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 Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com 
 
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 NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc increased the price range on its initial public offering an average of 14 percent to raise more than $12 billion, giving the world's No. 1 social network a valuation potentially exceeding $100 billion. 
 
 The company, founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room, raised the target range to between $34 and $38 per share in response to strong demand, from $28 to $35, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. 
 
 That would value Facebook at roughly $93 billion to $104 billion, rivaling the market capitalization of Internet powerhouses such as Amazon.com Inc, and exceeding that of Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc combined. 
 
 Facebook also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram, projecting that the deal would close in 2012 instead of closing in the second quarter as it had previously indicated. 
 
 Facebook provided no reason for the change, though a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached out to Google Inc and Twitter as part of the agency's standard review for deals of that size. 
 
 The price increase indicates intense market demand, which means Facebook's shares are likely to see a big pop on their first day of trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, analysts said. 
 
 "It's confounding but the evidence is that if companies raise the range, they will pop more," said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based financial services firm IPOX Schuster LLC. "It signals that there is such a strong demand that it will create a momentum for other investors who want to jump on." 
 
 Facebook said in its latest filing that it arrived at the higher IPO price range after one week of marketing the offering - part of a cross-country "road show" in which CEO Zuckerberg has occasionally taken the stage to lay out his vision for the company's money-making potential and its top priorities. 
 
 The Facebook range hike, coupled with strong results from Internet and social media players Groupon Inc and China's RenRen Inc overnight, contributed to a dotcom rally on Wall Street on Tuesday. 
 
 Shares of Pandora Media Inc were up 6.9 percent at $10.50 in afternoon trading, while Zynga Inc was up 8.3 percent at $8.61. Groupon was up 13.7 percent at $13.33, while Renren gained 9.5 percent to $6.01. Yelp Inc stock was up 7.5 pct at $21.55. 
 
 In the biggest-ever IPO to emerge from Silicon Valley, Facebook will raise $12.1 billion based on the midpoint price of $36 and the 337.4 million shares on offer, or 12.3 percent of the company. 
 
 At this midpoint, Facebook would be valued at roughly 27 times its 2011 annual revenue, or 99 times earnings. When Google went public in 2004 at a valuation of $23 billion, it was valued at 16 times trailing revenue and 218 times earnings. Apple Inc, meanwhile, went public in 1980 at a valuation of 25 times revenue and 102 times earnings. 
 
 Wall Street had expected Facebook to increase its price range, with investors eager to get a slice of a strong consumer brand. The IPO road show began last week and has drawn crowds of investors from coast to coast. 
 
 Facebook plans to close the books on its IPO later on Tuesday, two days ahead of schedule, a source familiar with the deal told Reuters on Monday. It is scheduled to price its shares on Thursday and begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. 
 
 The IPO is already "well-oversubscribed," which is why the company will close its books earlier than expected, the source said. 
 
 Facebook's capital-raising target far outstrips other big Internet IPOs. Google raised just shy of $2 billion in 2004, while last year Groupon tapped investors for $700 million and Zynga raked in $1 billion. 
 
 The IPO comes amid concerns from some investors that Facebook has not yet figured out a way to make money from an increasing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones. Revenue growth from Facebook's online advertising business has also slowed in recent months. 
 
 Company executives met with prospective investors in Chicago on Monday and were slated to travel to Kansas City, Missouri, and Denver, before returning to Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters. 
 
 A host of Wall Street banks are underwriting Facebook's offering, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs serving as leads. Facebook will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol "FB." 
 
 (Reporting By Olivia Oran in New York and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco, additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Matthew Lewis) ||||| WSJ corporate deputy bureau chief Spencer Ante analyzes Facebook's IPO filing. AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File 
 
 Facebook Inc. filed for an initial public offering Wednesday that could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the company on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time. 
 
 The company hopes to raise as much as $10 billion when it begins selling shares this spring, said people familiar with the matter. Potential buyers got their first look at its financials Wednesday, which showed the company produced a $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues. The company derives 85% of those revenues from advertising, with the rest from social gaming and other fees. 
 
 Live Chat 
 
 In just eight years, Facebook has become the world's social bazaar, where friends gossip, play games and swap 250 million photos per day. It has also emerged as a potent political tool, helping to topple regimes across the Middle East last year. 
 
 Among the surprises in Facebook's S-1 Filing were 2011 revenues, which at $3.7 billion, came shy of what analysts expected. Still, Facebook is on track to be valued between $75 and $100 billion. Geoff Fowler talks through the details with Stacey Delo. 
 
 But for all its success, the question remains just how Facebook will manage its growth into a mature, global business, keeping both advertisers and subscribers happy while balancing demands of privacy and profits. The filing left a few clues that Facebook's founder, 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, is worried about how wealth and public scrutiny may change the company's culture. 
 
 At Facebook's offices, employees went about business as usual Wednesday, said one person, enjoying a lunch of lobster bisque, braised beef, Moroccan couscous and apple, cream and honey galette for dessert, said another. A stack of giveaway posters left in a kitchenette at Facebook headquarters read "Stay Focused & Keep Shipping," according to a photo shared by Facebook employees. Mr. Zuckerberg shared a photo on Facebook of the flier on his desk. 
 
 Looming a few months away is Facebook's giant offering, which would top rival Google Inc.'s 2004 IPO. It holds the record for the largest U.S. Internet IPO by raising $1.9 billion at a valuation of $23 billion. Among U.S. companies, only Visa Inc., General Motors Co. and AT&T Wireless have held larger offerings than $10 billion. In the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook said it is seeking to raise $5 billion, but that figure is a placeholder and will likely grow. 
 
 While Facebook is growing fast—revenue grew 88% from a year earlier—the sales figures it released were lighter than some had expected. One widely cited outside estimate from research firm eMarketer pegged Facebook's revenue for 2011 at $4.27 billion. 
 
 Still, Facebook's membership growth has been staggering. The company said in its filing that it has 845 million users globally, up 39% from a year earlier. 
 
 The IPO is set to unleash a wave of wealth across Silicon Valley and yield potentially $100 million or more in fees for Wall Street banks managing the offering, including Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 
 
 The company chose "FB" as its ticker symbol but hasn't decided whether it will trade on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Stock Market. 
 
 Mr. Zuckerberg had been famously reluctant to push forward with an IPO. In early 2010, he told The Wall Street Journal that he was in "no rush" for Facebook to go public. 
 
 The CEO owns around 28% of the company and holds 57% of its voting share power, according to the filing. Mr. Zuckerberg will sell shares in the IPO and will use the proceeds to pay taxes, it said. The filing doesn't say how many shares the CEO intends to sell. 
 
 People familiar with Mr. Zuckerberg's thinking said he has long been fearful of the damage an IPO could do to the company's culture. He wants employees focused on making great products, not the stock price, they said. 
 
 Mr. Zuckerberg's thinking began changing when Facebook realized in 2010 that it would have more than 500 shareholders by the end of 2011, which would trigger a regulatory requirement that the company start publicly reporting financials. Mr. Zuckerberg decided it made more sense for Facebook to go public and reap some financial benefit from an IPO. 
 
 Facebook also still faces questions about its commitment to its users' privacy, an issue that had dogged it since its earliest days. Despite a settlement last year with the Federal Trade Commission in which the company agreed to independent privacy audits for 20 years, privacy advocates worry about the vast trove of user data it owns. Mr. Zuckerberg has promised users he is committed to protecting their privacy. 
 
 Facebook takes pains to mention the importance of privacy, mentioning the word 35 times in the filing, and even listing its "privacy and sharing settings" as one of the ways the company creates value. 
 
 Marketwatch columnist Mark Hulbert reports that at its initial public offering Facebook will be nearly 40 times more expensive than the average large IPO of the last four decades. (Photo: AP/Paul Sakuma) 
 
 In a letter to potential shareholders, Mr. Zuckerberg—who has long eschewed the business side of Facebook—said he plans to continue focusing on building products, rather than sales growth. "We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services," Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. "These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits." 
 
 Overall, Facebook's annual revenue growth is slower than other tech companies who have staged IPOs recently. Groupon's revenue grew 695% for the nine months ended September 2011 from a year earlier. Zynga's revenue more than doubled for that same time period. 
 
 Unlike some other newly public Web companies, Facebook is profitable, with 2011 profit up 65% from the year earlier period. But growth has its costs. The company's research and development expenses ballooned last year to $114 million in 2011 from $9 million in 2010, primarily due to growth in employee head count and equity compensation. Facebook's costs and expenses are going up faster than revenue. It employs 3,200 as of December, up from 2,172 a year earlier. 
 
 Debra Williamson, an eMarketer analyst who had estimated Facebook's 2011 revenue at $4.27 billion, called the company's revenue "disappointing." 
 
 But Kevin Landis, portfolio manager of Firsthand Technology Value Fund, Inc., which has bought Facebook shares in the secondary market, said he wasn't disappointed and hopes to buy more stock when Facebook goes public. "This is a company that has only just begun to scratch the surface of making money off those hundreds of millions of people getting on Facebook every day," he said. 
 
 Social gaming has become an increasingly important part of Facebook's business. The company generated $557 million in revenue from partners such as Zynga who sell virtual goods last year. 
 
 Facebook's revenue is still driven by online ads. The number of ads delivered on the site grew 42% and the average price per ad grew 18% over 2011 from 2010, according to the filing. 
 
 The company attributed the improvement to a vast trove of information that allows marketers to "show their ads to a subset of our users based on demographic factors such as age, location, gender, education, work history, and specific interests that they have chosen to share with us on Facebook or by using the Like button around the web or on mobile devices."
– Mark Zuckerberg's little startup filed papers with the SEC today to become a publicly traded company. Some of the Facebook particulars: The company says it plans to raise $5 billion, but that figure is expected to rise to perhaps $10 billion by the time the big day arrives in the spring. (The AP thinks the stock will debut in May.) The Wall Street Journal pegs the company's potential value at between $75 billion and $100 billion. The ticker symbol will be FB, though the filing didn't specify which exchange would be used for trading, notes MarketWatch. The company reported $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, up from about $2 billion in 2010. Analysts expected $4.3 billion, says the Journal. A Zuckerberg quote from a letter to future shareholders: "We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits." TechCrunch has the full text here. Facebook should shatter the figures from 2004 IPO of Google, which raised $1.9 billion and valued the company at $23 billion. See the filing for yourself here.