The Hill reports that the NASDAQ stock exchange has agreed to pay the SEC a $10 million fine for its part in the botched Facebook IPO. It’s noted that the fine is the largest ever paid by an exchange.

In the official report from the SEC, the commission says that investors saw a delay of 19 minutes when trading opened. That delay caused 30,000 orders to be stuck for two hours. Sure, it’s annoying, but not scandal worthy.

What the SEC took issue with is how NASDAQ began accepting orders again after reportedly fixing its system, even as traders were still reporting issues. The commission says that the exchange initiated in trading without understanding the problem with its system, therefore violating many of its own rules. Doing so violates the Securities and Exchange Act.

“This action against NASDAQ tells the tale of how poorly designed systems and hasty decision-making not only disrupted one of the largest IPOs in history, but produced serious and pervasive violations of fundamental rules governing our markets,” said George Canellos, a co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division.

Most recently, Facebook itself became the target of another lawsuit in relation to its IPO in March. A shareholder accused the social network of sharing critical information about the business with key investors while leaving everybody else out of the loop.

Facebook’s stock is down 2.49 percent today on the news. It’s currently trading at $23.50.

Gaye Jones says that such information was shared with key investors.

“The defendants were unjustly enriched because they realized enormous profits and financial benefits from the IPO, despite knowing that reduced revenue and earnings forecasts for the company had not been publicly disclosed to investors,” says the lawsuit.

This is definitely not the first time that a lawsuit has been filed with a nearly identical claim.

Soon after Facebook’s stock price began to plummet, a flood of lawsuits poured in accusing Facebook of concealing severe reductions in revenue growth due to the increase in mobile users and Facebook’s perceived inability to monetize mobile.

So, new lawsuit, similar complaint.

Jones’ new lawsuit is a derivative suit, which means that the investor “seeks to step into the shoes of the company and any money recovered from Zuckerberg and others would be paid to Facebook, not shareholders.”

Four previous derivative suits have been dismissed after a U.S. District Judge ruled that the shareholders did not own stock when Facebook allegedly deceived them before the IPO. Plus, he said that Facebook indeed “repeatedly made express and extensive warnings” about the trend toward mobile. In this case, Jones did in fact own Facebook stock since February 2012, months before the IPO filing in May.

Back in January, Facebook stock rode an upward trend and topped $30 for the first time in nearly six months. As of right now, the price sits at just over $27.50.

[Reuters]

Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo, a New York-based private company research firm, says that we can expect Twitter to go public by the end of the year – probably the fourth quarter. He cites a “source high up at Twitter” when making this prediction.

Here’s his rationale:

“By the time Facebook [made its market debut], it had been formally monetizing for four years and its growth rate was slowing,” notes Hamadeh. Meanwhile, if Twitter files to go public at the end of this year, it will hit just the right inflection point, where its revenue is growing in the triple digits, from $80 or $90 million in 2011 to $250 million last year and what we expect will be $500 million in revenue in 2013.”

Basically, Facebook waited too long and Twitter doesn’t want to make the same mistake.

According to Hamadeh, Twitter will price its IPO at $15 billion.

Last week, Greencrest Capital analyst Mas Wolff put Twitter’s valuation at $11 billion, saying that it was up since the Facebook IPO back in May 2012. He said that Twitter would be making preparations to go public this year, and launch the IPO some time in 2014.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has been notoriously quick to douse any and all IPO fires that have been lit in the past year or so. He’s made it clear that Twitter was in no rush to go public, and that Twitter needed to be patient in the way they built the business.

[via peHUB]

But is the time nearing for an IPO? One firm believes so. According to a report from Greencrest Capital, they believe that Twitter may being preparations to go public sometime in 2013 and the offering would come in 2014.

Greencrest uses recent managerial shifts to back up their claim, pointing to Ali Rowghani’s move from CFO to COO, and the addition of ex-Zynga guy Mike Gupta as CFO. Also, Newsvine’s Mike Davidson is now on board as VP of design.

Also, Twitter is undoubtedly better positioned to generate revenue than ever before as their promoted products offerings continue to expand.

Max Wolff, and analyst with Greencrest, now puts Twitter’s projected valuation at $11 billion. He says that Twitter’s valuation is up since the Facebook IPO.

He makes this valuation based on secondary market trading, but makes this caveat:

“Using the secondary market for shares to mark enterprise value is a very difficult and opaque process. It is a rumor rich and special share class soup.”

That being said, an $11 billion valuation is up a few billion from the last time we heard a valuation based on secondary markets back in July of 2011. And although $11 billion is barely 10% of the astronomical $100 billion figure we heard for Facebook when the IPO rumors began, Wolff says that Twitter’s valuation “looks better” than Facebook’s.

A few weeks ago, Twitter announced 200 million MAUs.

[via Forbes]

Q2 total revenue was $1.184 billion, up from $895 million in Q2 2011. They also posted a non-GAAP profit of $0.12 a share. The figures were pretty spot-on the Wall Street expectations.

“Our goal is to help every person stay connected and every product they use be a great social experience,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “That’s why we’re so focused on investing in our priorities of mobile, platform and social ads to help people have these experiences with their friends.”

Facebook also announced 955 million monthly active users, as well as 552 million daily active users. That’s an increase of 29% and 32%, respectively, year-over-year.

Check out the full post below:

Second Quarter 2012 Operational Highlights

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 955 million as of June 30, 2012, an increase of 29% year-over-year.

Daily active users (DAUs) were 552 million on average for June 2012, an increase of 32% year-over-year.

Mobile MAUs were 543 million as of June 30, 2012, an increase of 67% year-over-year.

Recent Business Highlights

Product

Facebook launched several new mobile products, including:

a new Facebook Camera app for iPhone,

an improved version of the mobile messenger app for both iOS and Android, and

several updates to the Facebook Android app.

Launched global App Center where users can discover relevant apps for mobile and web.

Apple announced plans for a deep Facebook integration throughout the next version of Apple’s iOS and OSX.

Advertising

Expanded the rollout of Sponsored Stories in News Feed and enabled advertisers to buy Sponsored Stories in mobile News Feed.

Facebook now has independent ROI data from more than 60 advertising campaigns using a variety of third-party methodologies like panels and marketing mix models. The results show that 70% of campaigns resulted in a return on ad spend of 3x or better, and 49% of campaigns showed a return on ad spend of 5x or better.

Corporate

Announced proposed acquisition of Instagram, a popular photo-sharing app.

Entered into a definitive agreement with Yahoo! to settle all pending patent claims between the companies and deepen the companies’ current business partnership.

Began serving users from our new data center in Forest City, N.C.

Announced that Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook, joined the company’s board of directors.

Second Quarter 2012 Financial Highlights

Revenue – Revenue for the second quarter totaled $1.18 billion, an increase of 32%, compared with $895 million in the second quarter of 2011.

Revenue from advertising was $992 million, representing 84% of total revenue and a 28% increase from the same quarter last year.

Payments and other fees revenue for the second quarter was $192 million.

Costs and expenses – Second quarter costs and expenses were $1.93 billion, an increase of 295% from the second quarter of 2011, driven primarily by share-based compensation expense. As previously noted in the company’s initial public offering prospectus, share-based compensation expense related to pre-2011 restricted stock units (RSUs) was not recognized in advance of the initial public offering, and as a result of the initial public offering during the second quarter, the company recognized $1.3 billion of share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses.

Income (loss) from operations – For the second quarter, GAAP loss from operations was $743 million, compared to income from operations of $407 million for the second quarter of 2011. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP income from operations for the second quarter was $515 million, compared to $477 million for the second quarter of 2011.

Operating margin – GAAP operating margin was negative 63% for the second quarter of 2012, compared to 45% for the second quarter of 2011. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP operating margin was 43% for the second quarter of 2012, compared to 53% for the second quarter of 2011.

Income tax provision – The GAAP income tax benefit for the second quarter was $608 million, representing a 79% effective tax rate. The company reported an income tax benefit as a result of the pre-tax loss in the second quarter. Excluding share-based compensation expense and related payroll tax expenses, the non-GAAP effective tax rate would have been approximately 40%.

Net income (loss) – GAAP net loss for the second quarter was $157 million, compared to net income of $240 million for the second quarter of 2011. GAAP EPS for second quarter of 2012 was $(0.08), largely reflecting the effect of the accounting treatment of pre-2011 RSUs, as previously noted in the company’s initial public offering prospectus. Excluding share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, non-GAAP net income was $295 million or $0.12 per share, compared to $285 million and $0.12 per share for the same quarter in the prior year.

Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures for the quarter were $413 million, a 213% year-over-year increase. Additionally, $52 million of equipment was procured or financed through capital leases during the second quarter of 2012.

Cash and marketable securities – Cash and marketable securities grew to $10.2 billion, which includes $6.8 billion in net proceeds from our initial public offering.

Read: Facebook ads don’t really work and we’re getting the hell out.

That’s the takeaway that many took from the move, and it promoted an intensification of a long-standing conversation about Facebook’s monetization strategy.

A few days later, we learned that the big ad pull may have been a more innocuous than previously thought. We learned that GM was making big advertising decisions apart from how they marketed on Facebook (like sitting out the Super Bowl next year). We also heard that Facebook even encouraged GM to utilize the free promotion that comes from promoting a page and content on their site.

No hard feelings, then. Right? GM insisted that the big pull right before the IPO was purely coincidental. A Ford exec tweeted that Facebook ads were effective, and it’s actually just about content, innovation, and execution. Amidst the arguing over the efficacy of Facebook ads, Facebook itself was suffering a pretty rotten couple of weeks on the market and thinking about new strategies to marketing their platform as a premier place to buy ad space.

A day before the IPO a marketing analyst for Gartner told us that, “Facebook very frequently updates its formats and releases new products, so it will have another chance to pitch to GM.”

And according to The Wall Street Journal, that’s exactly what’s happening right now. They say that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has spoken to GM CEO Daniel Akerson about the automaker coming back to big blue.

Also, from the WSJ:

[GM Global Marketing Chief Joel] Ewanick and Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s global sales head, met for the first time since the blowup at a June event in Cannes, France, a person familiar with the meeting said. Ms. Everson said Facebook is willing to provide GM with better data on how their ads can turn into dollars, as it has agreed to do with other advertisers, this person said. Facebook won’t provide any special treatment for GM, however.

Sources said that GM is waiting for Facebook to prove its effectiveness.

In the end, the $10 million the GM spent on Facebook advertising was minuscule – both to GM and Facebook, really. But, as a vote of confidence in the ability of Facebook ads to be effective, GM’s return would be good news for Facebook.

According to LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaugnessy, you can add LivingSocial to that list. Despite recent losses for the company, they are aren’t hurting for the capital an IPO would bring in.

LivingSocial was recently able to raise $600 million in venture capital with Amazon controlling nearly 30% of the company.

While LivingSocial isn’t as popular as their closest competitor, Groupon, they aren’t looking to be acquired either. In fact, they invested heavily last year in ways to diversify and grow their business. Currently, Groupon is holding about 60% share of the daily deals market, and LivingSocial is holding 26%. There’s definitely room for growth.

The Washington, D.C.-based company is expanding regardless of not finding the diversity it needs to grow in the market. The D.C. City Council, and local business professionals are working on a tax abatement for LivingSocial in order to help them expand their operation within the city and attract more top-level talent to the tech laden area.

So while it looks like LivingSocial is joining the long list of tech companies totally off-put by the idea of going public, they have no desire to be acquired and continue to advance efforts to grow their business, and diversify their daily deal offerings.

Facebook aside, LivingSocial need only look at Groupon, their closest competitor, to see going public isn’t necessarily a fast-track to success.

He has decided to sell off his huge collection of Facebook shares and is now saying it just isn’t a good investment. Ouch! That has to hurt Facebook in the eyes of investors.

Just this morning I wrote an article where Cuban offered his insight on how Facebook has what it takes to overcome the challenges ahead to become a valuable investment. Now he’s saying it’s best to get out when the gettin’ is good.

Essentially, Cuban says Facebook just issued too many shares of stock and in the process made themselves a lot less valuable. If they would have spread themselves thin, the market for Facebook shares would look a lot different today.

Financial guru Mark Cuban comments on his decision to sell off his shares of Facebook:

“I already sold it, I took my hit, my thesis was wrong. I thought we would get a quick bounce just about the excitement about the stock. I was wrong, and when you are wrong you don’t wait, you just get out. So I took a beating and left,”

“I mean if you look at other companies like LinkedIn, they issued 8.4 million shares and the stock skyrocketed. If Facebook would have come out with 8.4 million shares, instead of 421 million, the stock would be at about $200 right now. So it was just the circumstances that led to me getting in and out,”

He also admits it’s not just Facebook, that everybody is dealing with the same problems; how to monetize advertising? Also, he believes there will be be an increase in monetizing mobile, but it’s a challenge every internet company will have to face.

The good news for Facebook and their investors is that stock climbed to over $32 today on the Nasdaq. In fact, shares of the company have rose 20% since their $25.52 low on June 6th. We’ll see what happens.

Social networking companies aren’t the only ones trying to keep their heads afloat in the market right now. Pandora, one of the web’s most popular music services, is down 34% from its IPO price. Coupon-peddling website Groupon, meanwhile, is having some troubles of its own. Although the company is still trucking right along, their stocks are down 41%.

“After Facebook, investors will be gun-shy about dealing with these stocks,” Singular Research’s Robert Maltbie explained. “People will think of the business model, not the buzz.”

Investors aren’t the only ones concerned about the future of Facebook. According to BrandKeys’ Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, the company recently tumbled to the 5th position, right behind LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. The areas where Facebook took the biggest hit: “Self-Image” and “Trust & Security.”

Of course, not all social media networks are having problems. LinkedIn, a site used by business and technology professionals, is 59% this year, effectively doubling its IPO price in the process.

Taking into account the successful IPO, and all of the financial rewards it brought to the service’s founder, an infographic concerning things smaller than Mark Zuckerberg and his billions of dollars is awfully revealing. The image was created by MBAOnline, via UltraLinx, and while it uses the $19 billion mark as its high point–currently, Zuckerberg’s worth has decreased by by a little over $3 billion to its current $15.9 billion mark–its findings are still relevant.

Just substitute $16 billion for $19 billion. Nitpicking, I know:

Let’s stop and think about this for a second. Mark Zuckerberg’s worth, in light of the Facebook IPO, is more than the entire porn industry generates. Granted, I’m a little dubious on MBAOnline’s $10 billion mark for porn, and after a little legwork, there’s reason for my position.

According to an extensive report from TopReviews.com, the porn industry made a little bit more than $10 billion.

It should be noted the statistics in the report are five-to-six years old, so there could have been a decrease in the amount of revenue generated, but a 2011 porn industry infographic appearing on TheSmokingJacket.com still has the adult industry generating $13 billion worth of revenue. Of course, what’s $3 billion among friends? The point of MBAOnline’s infographic is not to pick nits about which industry made what. It’s to demonstrate just how big Zuckerberg has grown, thanks to a huge IPO.

The final segment of the infographic about Zuckerberg being worth more at 28 years old than Bill Gates was at the same age is a fine attempt at humor, but I’m sure Gates sleeps just fine on a bed made from his $61 billion net worth.