I have no comment on the Facebook IPO, but I would never be a Facebook user.
Let me see how this works. I turn over as much personal data as I can to a private company who then owns my data in perpetutity, and sells it to advertisers. The company feels free to invade my privacy (which I have stupidly given away) and probably shares the data with the government. Anyone who uses Facebook is a complete fool.
I think Facebook is smart to do an IPO now, but I wouldn’t buy it. The novelty of Facebook is wearing off a bit and the number of users has been declining. Their continued invasions of privacy (i.e. sending political affiliation to politico.com) and practice of forcing users to use features they don’t want (i.e. Timeline) will further alienate their users. Eventually a competitor will be able to seize momentum from Facebook.