What do you think the number one thing is that could lead to Facebook’s downfall? Can anything kill it? Tell us what you think.

In its filing, Facebook lists “some” of the risks that could significantly harm its business. It doesn’t say, “We could become the next MySpace,” but here are the things it does list:

• If we fail to retain existing users or add new users, or if our users decrease their level of engagement with Facebook, our revenue, financial results, and business may be significantly harmed;
• We generate a substantial majority of our revenue from advertising. The loss of advertisers, or reduction in spending by advertisers with facebook, could seriously harm our business;
• Growth in use of facebook through our mobile products, where we do not currently display ads, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results;
• Facebook user growth and engagement on mobile devices depend upon effective operation with mobile operating systems, networks, and standards that we do not control. ;
• We may not be successful in our efforts to grow and further monetize the facebook Platform;
• Our business is highly competitive, and competition presents an ongoing threat to the success of our business;
• Improper access or disclosure of our users’ information could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business;
• Our business is subject to complex and evolving U.S. and foreign laws and regulations regarding privacy, data protection, and other matters. May of these laws and regulation are subject to change and uncertain interpretation, and could harm our business;
• Our CEO has control over key decision making as a result of his control of a majority of our voting stock;
• The loss of Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl K. Sandberg, or other key personnel could harm our business;
• We anticipate that we will expand substantial funds in connection with tax withholding and remittance obligations related to the initial settlement of our restricted stock units (RSUs) approximately six months following our initial public offering;
• The market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile or may decline, and you may not be able to resell your shares at or above the initial public offering price; and
• Substantial blocks of our total outstanding shares may be sold into the market as “lock-up” periods end, as further described in “Shares Eligible for Future Sale.” If there are substantial sales of shares of our common stock, the price of our Class A common stock could decline.

You can view the filing in its entirety, as well as a letter from Mark Zuckerberg here.

I don’t think more people using Facebook’s mobile products will be the downfall of the company. People are increasingly using their phones (and tablets) to access the web. Increased mobile Facebook use should grow along with that. Facebook isn’t currently monetizing this use (with ads), but that is likely to change soon. Mobile ads are expected in the near future. That solves that problem.

Facebook’s mobile experience(s) are often criticized, and there’s no question that the desktop experience is better, but Facebook will continue to work on improving the mobile experience. The fact that they consider mobile such a risk factor only shows that this will be a significant emphasis. Expect more mobile-related acquisitions from the company, and better Facebook apps across mobile platforms.

I think the very first risk factor listed is really the one they should be most worried about. And essentially, this equates to “We could become the next MySpace.” The biggest challenge they have is to keep users interested, and other listed risk factors are an extension of this.

For one, don’t get shown up by competitors like Twitter and Google. Google, obviously a major force on the Internet should worry Facebook. It’s easy to brush off Google+ because maybe not many of your friends are using it. But how many of your friends use Google? That counts, because as Google has shown time and time again, everything they do is only going to become more integrated, and in the end, it’s really about where advertisers are spending their money.

Facebook has a healthy lead in display ads, but overall online advertising is another story, though Facebook is expected to surpass Microsoft and Yahoo this year. Google on the other hand doesn’t even have ads on Google+ yet. How long do you think that will last? Google is already showing a great deal of promise in the deals space as well (Google Offers), an area where Facebook hasn’t done incredibly well.

Beyond current competitors like Google and Twitter, however, there’s always the threat of the next big thing that comes out of nowhere. There is only so much time in the day. Every minute someone spends time on another site or another social network is a minute they’re not spending on Facebook.

Facebook’s reliability on third-parties raises concerns. As previously reported, Facebook is currently relying on Zynga for 12% of its revenue. Imagine if Zynga left Facebook, and took all of its Farmville, Cityville and Mafia Wars players with it.

Another very interesting entry in the list of risk factors is the part that says: “Improper access or disclosure of our users’ information could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business”.

Privacy concerns are pretty familiar territory for Facebook, and while this may have had some impact on the company’s reputation, it’s clearly done little to halt growth and use of the social network. It’s interesting that they seem to be acknowledging that issues could very possibly happen again.

In November, Facebook and the FTC announced their settlement over privacy issues, and the company agreed to third-party privacy audits for the next 20 years. Presumably, this will keep the company in line.

I think if the privacy thing was going to kill Facebook, it would have at least shown signs of doing so by now. What Facebook has to do more than anything else is stay fresh, and make sure users still have a reason to use it. Their most recent attempt at this would be the Timeline and the launch of the new open graph. We’ll see if it works.

Have you stopped using Facebook? Do you use it less than you did before? Why? Why do you care less about Facebook than you did before? Whatever that is could be what Facebook has to worry about the most. Let us know in the comments.

Note: Even MySpace isn’t really dead. So there’s that.

Today, Reuters is reporting that Facebook will indeed file on Wednesday, and that Facebook is expected to raise $5 billion in a preliminary IPO prospectus, “which while less than anticipated could be increased to ultimate investor demand.” The report cites “sources close to the deal”.

The report also says Facebook has hired five bookrunners, with Morgan Stanley as the leader, but also including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan. Reuters’ sources reportedly indicated more could be added to the list.

It looks like the actual IPO is still expected for May, as has been indicated in the past.

comScore released new numbers this week pegging Facebook as the leader in online display ads for the third year in a row. And continued ad expansion is in the works.

When the IPO launches, it’s going to be a huge one. You can count on that. Anyone who has read Accidental Billionaires or seen the critically acclaimed David Fincher film, The Social Network, must be wondering, what do the Winklevii think about all of this?

They’re certainly aware of it:

I’m sure there is still a sting, but they seem to be keeping in good spirits:

The Winklevoss twins gained a lot of fame thanks to Armie Hammer’s portrayal of them in The Social Network. Since the film came out, they’ve even appeared in commercials:

This ad really drives home just how big a part of popular culture the Winklevoss’ story (regarding the founding of Facebook) has become. Keep in mind, this is not Armie Hammer in the commercial, but the real Winklevii.

There’s no question that these guys are still benefiting from Facebook. Maybe not as much as Mark Zuckerberg, but they seem to be doing alright.

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t respond to my direct requests for comment.

With reports that Facebook will file its IPO documents this coming week (maybe as early as Wednesday), he’s now talking about that (and again, the MySpace screw-up).

Speaking of MySpace screw-ups, here’s what he said a couple weeks ago:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook may file its IPO papers as early as next Wednesday, and is “close” to picking Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter. This is based on “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reports. The valuation is expected to be between $75 billion to $100 billion.

Neither Facebook or Morgan Stanley is talking.

Back in December, Zynga, which owes a great deal of its success to Facebook, launched its IPO at $1 billion in what was considered the biggest tech IPO since Google.

Facebook ought to be changing that soon. It’s expected to raise as much as $10 billion.

Meanwhile, Facebook is doing plenty to boost ad revenue.

According to recent research from Palo Alto Networks, Facebook accounted for 80% of social media traffic.

At over 800 million users, that means Facebook accounts for over 1 in 10 humans on earth.

Audience is backed by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, whose Vulcan Capital is the third largest shareholder in the company (25%). Tallwood Venture Capital holds 32% share and New Enterprise Associates holds 30% share.

You might know Audience as the makers of earSmart, “the world’s most intelligent voice processor.” earSmart technology works to replicate how humans hear, by differentiating different sounds and enhancing voice sounds while keeping background noise in the background.

Basically, earSmart aims to improve mobile conversations in loud places.

earSmart is currently available in over 60 mobile devices, including the HTC Titan, Samsung Galaxy S II, Google Nexus One, and HTC Vivid.

From the S-1 filing:

We were founded in 2000 and initially targeted the rapidly growing mobile device market, including mobile phones, media tablets and mobile PCs. We began production shipments in 2008 and, as of December 31, 2011, had sold over 135 million processors to our OEM customers. In addition to the mobile device market, we believe that our voice and audio technology is applicable to a broad range of other market segments, including automobile infotainment systems, digital cameras, digital televisions, headsets and set top boxes. We outsource the manufacture of our voice and audio processors to independent foundries and use third parties for assembly, packaging, test and logistics. We had total revenue of $2.5 million, $5.7 million, $47.9 million and $79.7 million for 2008, 2009, 2010 and the nine

[Hat Tip to GeekWire]

“CEO Mark Pincus rang the opening bell, along with his wife Alison Pincus, board member Bing Gordon, and the Zynga management team,” a Zynga spokesperson tells WebProNews.

That team includes: Jeff Karp (CMO and Chief Revenue Officer); David Ko (Chief Mobile Officer), Reggie Davis (General Counsel), Cadir Lee (CTO), Dave Wehner (CFO), John Schappert (COO), Mike Verdu (Chief Creative Officer), Colleen McCreary (Chief People Officer) and Steve Chiang (Executive Vice President, Games).

The event began at 5:00am PT at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, though all Zynga offices and remote studios tuned in via livestream.

The offering launched with 100,000,000 shares of class A common stock at $10.00 per share. Stockholders granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15,000,000 shares to cover over-allotments, if any. The company won’t receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders, it says.

More on the IPO here. In honor of the IPO, Zynga put out the following infographic:

“Today’s a proud day here at Zynga. It’s a time to reflect on our mission to connect the world through games and bring play to everyone, everywhere. With reflection in mind, we dug deep to find a few amazing stats that power our games. From 1 dog to every 9 employees to more than 4 billion neighbor connections. Check out the infographic below to see what powers ‘play’ at Zynga,” the company said.

That values the company at over a billion, and is even bigger than even Groupon’s IPO earlier this year. It is actually being called the biggest tech IPO since Google.

Interestingly, CEO Mark Pincus elected to ring the opening bell at at its own headquarters in San Francisco, as opposed to the New York Stock Exchange.

In its regulatory filing, Zynga indicated it would offer about 14% of its common stock. According to Wall Street Cheat Sheet, Zynga doubled sales to $829 million in the first nine months of 2011.

Much is being made of all of the talent Zynga has been able to steal away from other companies. According to Business Insider, citing data from LinkedIn, they managed to “poach” 200 employees from rival game maker Electronic Arts alone, including 8 top executives.

Zynga is trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol ZNGA.

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, who is citing “people familiar with the matter,” Facebook is looking at somewhere between April and June 2012 for its IPO, aiming to raise $10 billion and a $100 billion valuation.

The valuation wouldn’t be too far off of the current trends we’ve already seen. Valuation estimates as recent as September already had the company valued at about $80 billion. You can see the steady growth in reported valuations over the past few years in this nice graph shared by Jolie O’Dell at Venturebeat recently:

Some notable tweets on the subject:

Facebook’s primary means of income is under scrutiny in Europe. The European Commission is reportedly set to introduce an initiative in January, which would ban the kind of targeted advertising that Facebook ads are based on. It will be interesting to see how this affects the IPO.

Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider says the publication received an email from a source “close to Facebook employees,” saying “that the rumor flitting from employee to employee is that ‘a Facebook S1 filing is coming really soon. Possibly as soon as next month.”

Still, he says another source says Facebook hasn’t even decided what banks will underwrite.

Two months ago, the Financial Times reported that Facebook is aiming for a late 2012 IPO launch.

Earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Charlie Rose, “It’’s not something I spend a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about.”

Recent valuations of the company have exceeded $80 billion. That’s reportedly up from about $4 billion in 2008. That’s just amazing. Jolie O’Dell at VentureBeat recently shared this graph depicting the company’s valuation escalation:

We’re not going to hold our breath for the Facebook IPO. Why start now? But we can’t help but be a little curious as to how soon this thing really is going to happen, after years of waiting.