Facebook users on IPO: 'It's time to get paid'

By Doug Gross, CNN February 1, 2012 -- Updated 2344 GMT (0744 HKT) | Filed under: Social Media

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Facebook filed to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering on Wednesday
• Users were talking about the IPO -- and how they'd like to get a piece of it
• As a public company, Facebook's info will be as scrutinized as its users, one said
• A novel idea -- one free share for every Facebook user!

(CNN) -- With Facebook's announcement Wednesday that it will become a publicly traded company, lots of folks were talking about it.
On Facebook.
The company filed Wednesday to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering. Most analysts predict that Facebook's valuation will ultimately fall somewhere between $85 billion and $100 billion.
Those staggering numbers had Facebook users -- those whose privacy settings defaulted to public -- largely pondering one major school of thought: "Wow, that's a lot of money."
"$5 billion IPO for Facebook?!?!? What the hell am I doing on Facebook???" wrote a user named Jeff Pantridge. "Screw this... I'm making Jeffbook. I should have something whipped up in an hour. Friend me, follow me... Whatever ... . It's time to get paid."
Facebook user Michael John Chaves pondered what the big-dollar opening says about careers in the tech industry.
"Hmm to become a hardware engineer or software engineer?" he wrote. "Facebook's IPO expected to create between 500 and 1,000 millionaires among employees. Soo the answer is: Software Engineer."
Gregory Luis Martinez had more humble ambitions.
"Anybody want to split a share 10 ways?" he joked.
Other users predicted a flood of would-be investors.
"I expect people will be crawling over each other to invest after the Facebook IPO," wrote Adam Saunders. "It will be interesting to see whether Facebook can match the expectations that will come along with its new, and likely obscenely high, valuation."
Mostly, however, the big financial news inspired a lot of wry observations.
"Ironically Facebook could be dealing [with] the same problem with public scrutiny after the IPO as most of us do when deciding what to post on Facebook," wrote user Mark Glaser.
User Larry Scudder lobbed this one: "With facebook becoming a public traded company and making everyone go to the stupid timelines, what are the odds of it going the way of myspace?"
Well ... at its peak, Newscorp paid (some would say overpaid) $580 million for Myspace. That's hundreds of millions less than what Facebook earned just last year. And we don't see Facebook being sold for a paltry $35 million -- as Myspace was last year -- anytime soon.
Facebook earned $1 billion last year on sales of $3.7 billion. The site said it now has more than 845 million daily active users.
And that's the number that had user Phillip Pambrun thinking that maybe Facebook should spread the wealth a little. He even encouraged users to take their case to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"Ok, so. Facebook is about to IPO in a moment. Am I the only person that thinks every Facebook member should receive at least 1 share at initial post?If it wasn't for all of you loyal and faithful Facebookers, this would never have gotten this far. So, everyone, message the high "Z" for your minimum 1 share. Lol! "
Hey ... can't blame him for trying.