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Recent investments have valued Mark Zuckerberg's college experiment at $50 billion: good luck finding out if it's a fair price. NIALL KITSON ponders the irony of a social network struggling to maintain its privacy.

Do you have any idea of your personal worth? Facebook, or rather some new investors in it, seem to have an idea: about $100.
This figure comes off the back of recently announced investment of $500m by investment bank Goldman Sachs and Russian group Digital Sky Technologies.
The fresh injection of capital marks another milestone in the company's valuation, putting it at a lofty $50 billion, and founder Mark Zuckerberg at $7 billion.
Previous high profile investments from the likes of Microsoft ($240m) and legal settlements in the tens of millions portray a company more concerned with being cool than corporate, more bombastic than boardroom.
Given that Facebook became the world's most visited website last year, it's fair to say there's money in it somewhere. It's that 'somewhere' that has attracted private investors, venture capitalists and even Bono. Surely 500 million users can be tapped for more than virtual gifts and casual games like Farmville.
Perhaps the key to understanding Facebook is to look at the brains behind it. Anyone who has seen David Fincher's The Social Network will have gained some insight into a world of Web developers and entrepreneurs struggling to convert cultural impact into commercial viability. The film painted a picture of a company (even an industry) run on narcissism, naiveté and genius, where big ideas are the real currency and investors are treated with disdain on the assumption that 'they just don't get the Internet'. (If you think that's a cliché, Venturebeat.com reported this week that Goldman Sachs employees were being briefed on what exactly Facebook does.)
Facebook's official reaction to the film and the book that spawned it has been dismissive. Having the world's youngest billionaire as your CEO is inevitably going to attract interest, so what if a little dramatic licence has been taken - as long as Zuckerberg's financials aren't affected it's a case of 'no harm no foul'. If nothing else, it's a great story.
As The Social Network's tagline goes, "you don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies". Facebook's challenge is to convert as many of those friends into paying customers and convert its speculative value into a measurable return - preferably without paying millions to lawyers and disgruntled former business partners or ceding creative control.

Scrutiny
The wonderful irony about Facebook's financial situation is that it guards its results in manner hardly described as friendly. With fewer than 500 shareholders, the company is not legally obliged to publish its results or trade shares with the general public. The Wall Street Journal reported last September that the company was on track to take $1.2 billion in revenue. Based on 2009's figure of $800m, it's a fair estimate.
This situation could be about to change as the Securities and Exchange Commission begins an inquiry in the number of Facebook shareholders. Should that magic 500 be reached then the company could be forced into an initial public offering (IPO) that could net the company huge money but put it at the mercy of forces beyond its control.
Zuckerberg is adamant an IPO will not take place. Substitute coolness for accountability and you've got an entirely different entity.
For a cautionary tale look no further than MySpace, which is set to continue its terminal decline this month as rumours of job losses in the region of 50% and a quick sale compounded concerns over declining visitor numbers.
Its new focus on being a content delivery platform over a 'traditional' network could prove a costly gamble both financially and in maintaining a population that suffered a decline of three million visitors between October and November 2010 alone.
Mark Zuckerberg's dream is to create an ecosystem based on the free exchange of personal data, where the sheer weight of information ends up protecting the individual. You just have to know what to look for amidst all the noise - a bit like the financial markets.