• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, February 1, 2012

Buy, buy, buy! Not yet, not yet, not yet! Just so we’re clear, even if Facebook files the prospectus for its IPO, today -- as is widely expected -- there won’t be any stocks to purchase until May or June. What, then, would be the significance of the filing?

Well, while rumored to be setting a preliminary fund-raising goal of about $5 billion, as The New York Times writes: “Should Facebook expand the size of the stock sale to that expected $10 billion, the I.P.O. will be the biggest technology offering in history.”

As AllThingsD reports, Facebook's board of directors is actually trying to minimize the hype and bubble-effect of what will surely be a frenzied event.

In more practical terms, the imminence of a Facebook IPO “has marketing and advertising experts expecting the social network to challenge Google at a time when the search giant is trying to ramp up its own ad targeting efforts,” notes eWeek. “While Google has commanded the market for search advertising for a decade, the company hasn't made the headway it would like in display advertising.”

Also worth noting, “once the company files its S-1 paperwork to go public, it will have to enter a mandated quiet period, so it looks like Open Graph and Timeline are the last few products we’ll see from the company until May,” according to The Next Web.

Long-term, “Facebook being a public company has potentially huge repercussions,” writes Gizmodo. Regarding the intense scrutiny that Facebook could soon be subjected to, Gizmodo adds: “That kind of pressure can make a company lose site of what made it so successful in the first place.”

Still, “there won't be the faintest reason for the average person to care about this IPO until shares actually start selling months from now,” Gawker assures. "Steel yourself for endless breathless hype pandemonium … Oh, it's going to be awful.”

According to CNNMoney: “Facebook's IPO filing won't answer one burning question: What's the company worth?” No, “For that, Wall Street will have to wait until Facebook starts trading, which typically happens several months after companies file their first round of regulatory paperwork.”