The lukewarm response to Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering sent shares of other social-media companies tumbling Friday.
Facebook Inc. sold 180 million of its shares in its initial public stock offering. Another 241.2 million came from existing stockholders, including the company's earliest investors and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
It looks like it will take more than Facebook's initial public offering to push stocks up.
Facebook is the hottest Internet company to hit the stock market since Google went public in 2004. The Silicon Valley companies, located seven miles apart, also happen to be locked in a bitter battle for Web surfers' allegiance and online advertisers' money. The duel is likely to intensify now that the IPO has given Facebook Inc.'s social network billions of dollars to battle Google Inc.'s dominant search engine.
Key developments in the eight years since Facebook Inc.'s creation:
Mark Zuckerberg is selling 30.2 million shares as part of Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering of stock. With shares priced at $38 each, he's receiving $1.15 billion.
Growth in the number of active users at Facebook, defined as someone who logs on at least once a month:
Facebook Inc. and its shareholders raised $16 billion in an initial public offering of stock. It is the largest IPO by far for an Internet company. The amount raised comes from how many shares were sold by the company and its early investors _ 421.2 million _ at the IPO price of $38.
To CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has a social mission to make the world more open and connected. He made the company's thinking known in its regulatory filing for an initial public offering of stock. In a letter to potential investors, Zuckerberg also discussed Facebook Inc.'s approach to culture and management:
