With user numbers set to soar above the billion mark in 2012, the world's biggest and best known social networking site has decided to float on the stock market.

Last night's Initial Public Offering of $5bn (around £3.16bn) was actually a little lower than many analysts expected, but it's still a fair chunk and is the biggest yet in the Internet sector. Facebook now has an estimated value of $100bn; we'll see how that changes once the company has floated, but it's not far behind Google at $148bn which in turn is on the heels of Microsoft at $251bn.

In theory, as Facebook is nothing without its members, this makes each user worth $100. That seems a little crazy, but considering the social networking giant made a net profit of $1bn on revenues of only $3.6bn - all this  purely from advertising - it seems the valuation may be more realistic than those placed on certain companies back in 2000...

Advertisers are already exploiting the captive audiences that Facebook provides and Mark Zuckerberg's baby is taking full advantage of that. With the company going public and investors expecting innovation and profit generation, a $5bn injection could kick-start a quantum shift in the way companies and and consumers interact online.

Expect plenty more news about Facebook across the web over the next few months.