What does it mean that Facebook is going public? ?

[624]

I heard that on Friday Facebook is going public. What does this mean?

[BILL]

It means people can buy Facebook stock.

[Adam]

It means they are selling stock to the public and have to report their financials and be regulated as a publicly traded company.

[bee]

They are starting to sell stock.... hence going public because they will be partially owned by the public.

[Murzy]

people will be able to buy stock in Facebook

[MAXX]

Basically it means the possibility of more ads.

It means that they are going to be selling shares of their company. The big controversy is the question of how they are going to make money using facebook without loosing users and people who want to use them as a marketing tool.

[Hamish]

When a company goes public, it is opening its stock for purchase on the stock market, allowing members of the public to purchase a part of the company.

This allows Facebook to receive a large boost of initial income, for what reason yet is unknown, but it is going to help Facebook become a much more powerful company, with a far higher income than it is currently earning.

[Rom Cartridge]

It just means that Facebook will start selling part of it stock, also known as shares, to the public.

Although with this action everybody will be able to buy and own a part of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, will still control the company thanks to special shares that will carry 10 times the voting power of the public ones.