Francis Gaskins, the President of IPODesktop.com, told us that, even though Facebook’s IPO has a lot of potential, its estimated valuation of $75-100 billion is not reasonable. As he explained, when you look at the past 4-5 quarter results, Facebook’s earnings were flat.

What’s more is the fact that Facebook didn’t really have a competitor during that time. Now, however, with Google+ on the scene and growing at a rapid rate, Gaskins believes that the company’s forecast could be off.

According to him, Facebook should have gone public last summer, which would have made it the first of its kind.

Do you think Facebook should be valued at $100 billion? Why or why not?

It’s clear that users have played a big role in building Facebook, but what does the IPO mean for them? According to Chris Treadaway, the founder of Polygraph Media as well as the author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day, Facebook will improve the user experience but will be very focused on increasing its revenue.

While there are concerns over how big and powerful Facebook will become, especially in light of all the data it has, Treadaway doesn’t think that people will simply drop the service.  As he explains, Facebook provides many benefits for its users and has become a huge part of society. For these reasons and others, he says it would be difficult for the trend to change so quickly.

Another group that has influenced the growth of Facebook is marketers. The Facebook platform offers a unique opportunity for marketing, and both marketers and advertisers have taken advantage of it. Treadaway tells us that, with its IPO, he expects Facebook to become more involved in lead generation with consumers and sellers of consumer goods.

In addition, he said there would likely be more tools going forward to accommodate Facebook’s greater push toward behavioral ad targeting.

What are your thoughts on Facebook’s IPO? We’d love to know.

The social network, like many other Internet companies, allows advertisers to target their audience based on various factors including location, demographics, and likes. The Telegraph calls this practice “eavesdropping” and explained that Facebook could face legal action or a large fine if the law is implemented.

In response to this news, a Facebook spokesperson told WebProNews that the accusations were “inaccurate and sensational.” The spokesperson went on to say that Facebook users give their consent to be served relevant ads when they sign up for the service.

Is Facebook crossing the line, or are the European claims over the top?

Henry Kim, the company’s President and Co-founder, spoke with WebProNews and explained that the app uses Facebook own social tools to emulate an offline shopping environment. Since shopping is a social experience and Facebook has mass traction, Kim told us that the two fit together perfectly.

Sneakpeeq also plans to further its social integration as Facebook’s new changes are fully rolled out.

WebProNews spoke with Justin Kistner, the Director of Social Products at Webtrends, which is a company that was included in the Alpha testing of Facebook’s new product. He told us that the new Facebook Insights tool focuses more on measuring engagement and not just fan growth.

Incidentally, Webtrends also introduced a tool called Hoverstats that allows page owners to evaluate the effectiveness of their posts. He said the idea behind both tools is to help brands determine whether or not they are reaching and engaging with their fans.

On the negative side, Facebook has filed legal action against them for infringing on its trademark rights. Although the legal issues are not resolved, Standefer and Genitempo told WebProNews that they are proud of the success of Lamebook. They said the ordeal has been a great learning experience for them.

WebProNews spoke, specifically, with Chester Wisniewski, the Senior Security Advisor at Sophos, about the matter. Sophos believes that Facebook needs to verify the people making the accusations and also notify the people that are being accused about what content they are infringing upon.

Wisniewski said, “a little bit of a validation process might go a long way.” Do you agree?

When he tried to connect with Facebook and defend himself, he found that the company does not have any customer support. He believes this is a very big problem for a company of Facebook’s magnitude, especially given the fact that its users range from all ages.

“This is a problem that, if it’s ignored, it’s not going to get better; it’s going to get worse,” he said.

As a result, Fagin has filed a lawsuit against Facebook for $1. Since the value is so low, it’s obvious that the principle of the matter is his bigger objective. He told WebProNews that he would like to raise enough awareness to ensure that the government would somehow require Facebook to incorporate customer support.

For anyone that has had a similar experience on Facebook, Fagin asks that they email him.

Update: Fagin has also created a Facebook group as part of his initiative.

According to John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the new options are an improvement to Facebook’s previous security measures.

“Facebook has rolled out these tools in an effort to make the website a little bit more friendly to folks who may have previously had a bad experience,” he said.

However, he did express disappointment in the fact that Facebook did not make these new measures the default option for its users.

The startup is, essentially, a professional career network within Facebook. It helps both individuals and businesses find what they are looking for. BranchOut brings social features to the experience as well.

Marini told WebProNews that BranchOut would soon be releasing enterprise products to specifically meet business needs. To learn more about how BranchOut works, visit their site.

In an interview with Abby Johnson, Pixable’s Inaki Berenguer and Andres Blank discussed a study that discovered certain patterns.  Women share twice as many photos on Facebook as men, for example, and also appear in twice as many photos.

Then here’s a different, and perhaps less intuitive, fact: according to Berenguer and Blank, older people share almost as many photos as younger people.

Finally – and we’re perhaps back into more obvious territory here – guys like to look at photos of girls they don’t know, while girls like to look at photos of girls they do know.

Anyway, as people continue to use Facebook more and more, and picture-taking mobile devices become better and more common (whether we’re talking about smartphones, iPads, or whatever), the cofounders of Pixable predicted that photo overload could become an issue.

Indeed, the pair believe that finding a way of organizing pictures will be key, or else people will become overwhelmed by pictures of friends, favorite celebrities, and popular bands.

Since kids always find ways to do what they want, many children are joining the site by lying about their age, which is a growing concern for parents. First Lady Michelle Obama is one of those concerned parents and even said on The Today Show that she didn’t want either of her girls on Facebook.

Social networking site Everloop hopes to provide a solution for both parents and children. It is said to be just like Facebook but with content that is geared toward children between the ages of 8-13. In addition, it contains controls for parents that allow them to monitor what their children are doing on the site.

“One of the things that Everloop is solving is really giving children under the age of 13 their own social utility, or what we call, their own social graph,” said Tim Donovan, Everloop’s CSO.

Everloop is in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which means that a parent must authenticate a child before it is permitted on the site. This compliance also ensures that Everloop cannot gather personal information from kids for marketing purposes. Getting parental consent additionally helps prevent sexual predators from obtaining access to the site.

For children, the experience is very similar to that of a user on Facebook. Children have access to a video network and game arcade, and they can create and join groups based on entertainment, learning, and more. They can also customize their own profiles and can take part in IM chatting, SMS, and VoIP.

“Right now, a child under 13, their community experience is disparate. So, they go to YouTube to watch videos, they’ll go to Nickelodeon to or Disney XD to play casual games, they’ll go to Facebook and they’ll sneak onto Facebook to be part of a larger social experience, so we’re collapsing all of that into one experience on Everloop,” said Donovan.

Parents can also customize what their child does on Everloop and give him or her the power to email, IM, chat, etc. They can also enable reporting settings that notify them when their child takes certain actions on the site.

“How do I keep my child’s privacy and information protected? How do I have more insight into the activities that my child is engaged in when they’re online? How do I have more controls over their behavior and their engagement in the social community? So, Everloop solves all those problems for parents,” Donovan points out.

Not only does Everloop want to give parents control and make the process convenient for them, but it also wants to let children feel like they have control as well. If children didn’t have some level of power, they would not be interested in the site at all. Donovan also said that Everloop has to be as cool as Facebook in order to attract kids.

“The bottom line is this, if it’s not cool, kids won’t use it. So, coolness comes from being relevant, coolness comes from having the bleeding edge of technology, coolness comes from… thousands and thousands of opportunities and experiences,” he said.

Everloop also recently announced that it is partnering with i-Safe, the leading publisher of media literacy and educator of digital citizenship, in an effort to bring social media to the classroom. The two organizations will begin to roll out their platform in April.

City councilman Devin Dwyer issued a proposal that would allow police to share the names and photos of those arrested habitually for DUI charges on Facebook. Dwyer believed the initiative would bring much-needed improvements to his community that has been plagued with alcohol-related accidents and fatalities.

Huntington Beach is ranked top in the state for its number of alcohol-related incidents. In 2009 alone, 1,687 people were arrested for DUI and 195 people were either killed or injured.

Although there was strong support for the proposal, the council voted it down earlier this week. The Web, incidentally, is still buzzing with opinions on both sides of the debate.

Privacy groups have especially risen up against the proposal saying that the impact of publishing this information could be very harmful.

“We’ve seen, in the past, that proposals to post these sorts of images on the Web and on Facebook of individuals who are accused of DUI have had catastrophic results,” John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said to WebProNews.

He went on to call the proposal an issue of “selectivity” since it would single out individuals accused of a particular crime and permit the posting of this information on Facebook.

Councilman Dwyer, however, pointed out that because of the powerful reach that Facebook has, it could effectively raise awareness for issues such as drinking and driving.

“It’s a new social medium that we’re learning to live with, and it’s becoming a part of all of our lives,” he said.

He told WPN that the council did pass the section of his proposal that would allow police to post the names and photos of DUI arrests on their website, but he was quick to add that he would further pursue his Facebook efforts.

What are your thoughts on this situation? Is this information too private for Facebook, or is Facebook a new means for getting important messages out?

As Facebook and other social channels increase in value, especially in the many areas of government, we will likely be faced with more scenarios just like this one.

One principle is to persuade and not push. For Facebook, subtlety is more effective than aggressiveness.

“On Facebook, you don’t want to sell really hard,” said Zarrella.

She went on to say that marketers should lead consumers most of the way but let them take the final step.

Another principle that can be learned from Buffy is to be predictable. Just like the predictable character arc in every season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Zarrella said that businesses should also have branded content patterns on Facebook.

When businesses apply this model, consumers know what to expect. She suggests dedicating a certain day for contests, such as every Wednesday. While the details may change, consumers will know that every Wednesday there will be some type of contest in which they can participate.

Thirdly, Zarrella said that it is important to know when something is working and when it is not. The Buffy series lasted for 7 successful seasons but knew to get out while it was still on top.

Furthermore, businesses need to be ready to make changes when their strategy is not working. According to her, Facebook gives businesses the ability to have fun and implement strategies that could not be carried out on their website.

Interestingly, these tips and more can be found in The Facebook Marketing Book written by both Dan and Alison Zarrella.

In this video, Clay suggests that likes, referrals, and recommendations will become major part of all the ranking algorithms used by search engines. You can see that the search engines are already very interested in this kind of social data, from Bing’s deal with Facebook to Google’s desire of Facebook’s data.

It’s going to be interesting to see just how big a role likes and other social interactions play in search overall, going forward. You can expect new kinds of spam and manipulation. Google and the other search engines will have their hands full trying to combat those hoping to game the system. The social networks will have their hands full as well.

Likes are already coveted by content providers all over the web. Listen to what Bruce Clay has to say about this and where the industry is heading.

To learn more about Bruce Clay’s predictions, watch the full interview.