Facebook goes public today, now worth over $104bn

Facebook's gone public today, meaning that for the first time ever, stock in the blue-tinted social network can be bought by the public.

Facebook's story is one of exponential success, but this initial public offering (IPO) will for the first time give an impression of how much the nebulous Internet company is actually worth, thanks to people scrabbling to buy shares, or later rushing to sell them if they think the company has had its day.

Demand on day one is expected to be high. At the point of going public, each single share was priced at $38, with the company valued at a whopping $104.2bn (about £66bn) overall. By the end of the day the price of each share is likely to climb, but could settle down -- or even drop -- over time.

Bubble trouble?

Financially minded chaps will be stroking their chins and observing today's happenings, trying to figure out whether we're in another dot-com bubble. Facebook's offering will make it worth over $100bn, but is that price way too high for a service that exists in the ether, with a value that's tough to calculate?

There are a few reasons why Facebook could be in a spot of bother now that it's gone public. For example, Facebook is funded by advertising, yet is displays hardly any ads on its mobile apps -- despite the fact that 425 million people access Facebook through these channels per month.

Recently US firm General Motors pulled its adverts from Facebook, deciding that ads on Zuckerberg's site simply weren't proving effective. If other companies follow suit, Facebook's share price could fall as investors lose confidence in the company's ability to make money.

We'll be keeping a close eye on Facebook's share price to see how it fares over the next few days and weeks. Do you think Zuckerberg and his cohorts are a sound investment? Or has the company's value been grossly overestimated? Let me know in the comments or on our Facebook wall.