(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY SAMANTHA KUBOTA

ANCHOR ANTHONY MARTINEZ

The world’s most well liked social media giant may soon be available for purchase.

According to a Wall Street Journal report released Friday morning, Facebook could be set to file papers for an Initial Public Offering as soon as Wednesday of next week.

Mark Zuckerberg’s hand was at least a little forced on this one.  If a private company has more than 500 shareholders, it has to release financial data or go public.

The report doesn’t cite any specific sources but says Facebook is currently “looking at a deal that would value the social network between $75 billion to $100 billion.”

The Wall Street Journal also reports at that valuation, “Facebook is looking to raise as much as $10 billion.”

Now, all this is attributed to simple “people familiar with the matter” but that hasn’t stopped the speculation.

Mashable points out that Facebook halted its secondary market trading this past Wednesday, and an IPO would explain all the STUFF Facebook’s been rolling out recently.

This past week, Facebook announced everyone will get the timeline on their profile...ready or not.

And earlier this month, Facebook’s Director of Platform Products announced that more than 60 apps are immediately going live, including such favorites as Pinterest, eBay and Foursquare.

Why make all these announcements right before going public? The leading theory, as pointed out by Mashable, is that if Facebook files the paperwork for an IPO, they’ll have to go into a “quiet period,” which means no rolling out new stuff, announcements or movie sequels. Just kidding about the last one.

As you might expect, no one within the walls of Facebook is talking on camera, but there’s one guy we can always count on to have something to say: Sean Parker of Napster and Former president of Facebook.

“To the extent that there is any bubble in technology at all, it is really a bubble around Facebook in the sense that there is a huge amount of pent-up demand among retail investors for access to Facebook equity.”

Citing its unnamed sources, the WSJ also reports Morgan Stanley is among Facebook’s top picks to manage the offering. If Facebook files, it would be the fourth largest IPO in U.S. history, behind Visa, G.M. and AT&T.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Facebook now has more than 800 million friends online.