Facebook made its NASDAQ debut on Friday. Mark Zuckerburg appeared via a video link from the firm's headquarters in California to introduce the stock. However, technical glitches at the Nasdaq Stock Market delayed the trading  by half an hour. Facebook shares ended their first day of trading at $38.23, barely above the company's initial pricing of $38. Shares in the social network initially rose more than 10% to $42, before quickly falling back.

Mark Zuckerberg has told investors that transforming the social networking portal's mobile and advertising experience are top priorities in 2012. Integrating online apps more strongly into Facebook is also a major goal, he told hundreds of investors at an event that concluded the first week of Facebook's cross-country road-show to promote its highly anticipated IPO. Zuckerberg said Facebook's overall advertising business was gaining steam, with increased spending by most of advertisers. 

Facebook has announced on Thursday that its initial public offering price range will be priced between $28 and $35 a share, bringing the value of the company to $77 billion to $96 billion, and granting the world's largest social network a market value close to Amazon.com's, according to Reuters. 

Facebook has agreed to buy photo-sharing platform Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. This is Facebook's biggest acquisition ever, in both price and reach. "We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a a blog post. "But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."

According to industry insiders, Facebook is set to roll out its IPO next year . The company is said to be targeting 2012's second business quater for its shares to go public. According to Bloomberg, Facebook is currently considering a $10 billion Initial Public Offering valued at more than $100 billion.

According to Reid Hoffman, Facebook investor and co-founder of LinkedIn, Mark Zuckerberg will choose to float Facebook next year. "Going public would benefit Facebook in lots of ways - namely having public currency to do acquisitions. So Mark [Zuckerberg] might as well get the benefit as well as the cost. Given that logic - I would suspect that some time in first half of next year, he will engage in the IPO process" said Hoffman.

According to The New York Times, Facebook is close to a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding its privacy settings.  Facebook has been widely criticized for the privacy changes it made in 2009. In the changes, certain personal information, such as a person's gender and home city, was made publicly accessible.