According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook -- the goliath of social networking sites -- may file the paperwork for its long-expected initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as this week.

The Journal cited "people familiar with the matter" and noted the anticipation of what could be one of the largest debuts for a U.S. public company. Specifically, the IPO for the social network could raise between $75 billion and $100 billion, the Journal reports. Those same numbers have been thrown around in media reports for months.

"The IPO for Facebook could very well reach into the upper extent of that estimation. Various people have been talking about a $100 billion IPO," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "I think that's frankly more of a reflection of the enthusiasm of the investment community than it is an accurate assessment of what the company's value might be."

Rising Tide of Social IPOs

In November, Groupon posted the largest initial public offering since Google by raising $700 million. Then, in December, Zynga one-upped the social couponing site with an IPO of its own by raising $1 billion in its IPO. Zynga then boasted the biggest IPO since Google raised $1.9 billion in 2004. Facebook could dwarf them all when it goes public.

"Back in the dot-com boom, there was a marathon run of companies that were hugely popular and hugely valued," King said, "But many of those companies had real trouble establishing a way to make a living at what they do. I think Facebook has done a better job of that than a lot of very forgettable ideas during the dot-com boom.

"At the same time, it's basically a service site that makes its money from selling advertising. I'm not sure that the company has proved it can make a living doing anything else to date. I am sure that congratulations will be due and it will be interesting to see what happens with the company and its founding owners after the IPO."

Facebook's Financial History

Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard in 2004. Facebook secured $25 million in funding in April 2006. Greylock Partners led the financing, while Meritech Capital Partners and Facebook's early investors, including Accel Partners and Peter Thiel, also participated.

Facebook teamed up with Microsoft for advertising syndication in August 2006, then developed its platform for developers of social applications the following year. That paved the way for the likes of Zynga to bring games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille to Facebook. Facebook also went mobile in 2007 and rolled out its own advertising platform in November 2007 before launching international versions in native languages.

In January 2011, Facebook raised $1.5 billion at a valuation of about $50 billion. Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies made the investment. At that time, Facebook said it would start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

x

More in Real-Time News:

Nintendo Looks to Online as It Reports Its First Loss... Read More >