First off, Facebook only accounts for 1% of the world’s total of $507 billion in advertising expenditures. It is not expected that their going public will spur on any additional corporate spending in this area.

Secondly, Analysts feel that the value of the stock is grossly overinflated and may not hold its value after the IPO. This would only hurt Facebook’s bottom line.

Third, it is not expected that a Facebook IPO will encourage any new investment in other tech firms who are searching for startup capital. In other words, Facebook’s going public doesn’t give investors any new motives to believe other internet tech firms are any better of a risk than they were before.

A Fourth reason why Facebook’s IPO won’t have much overall impact is that it really doesn’t change much for FB’s insider’s. The cost of doing business may increase but, adding new investors won’t change how business is done. Facebook has been traded on private secondary markets by investors and employees for quite some time.

As of today, no decisions have been finalized about what platform (NASDAQ or NYSE) will even offer the stock. We’ll have to wait to see how going public ultimately effects Facebook.

Securing Facebook could have a synergistic effect for the winner platform however it is doubtful that it will significantly change listing revenues at either exchange. According to insiders on Wall Street, Facebook could file IPO documents with regulators as soon as March. Sources also report that Facebook has already reserved their ticker symbol as “FB”.

CFO David Ebersman and other prominent members of Facebook’s staff have already heard from both exchange platforms on the merits of choosing one versus another but no decisions have yet been made. As their campaigns push forward I’m sure we’ll hear a decision from Facebook soon.

The NASDAQ index and Google Finance teamed up on a pilot program to bring real time information from the tech-heavy index to the Internet. The exchange touted its status as the first US stock market to place real-time quotes on the Net for free.

“This is an important, and in many ways, overdue development in the U.S. securities markets,” NASDAQ Executive Vice President Adena Friedman said in a statement. Google and other companies, including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and financial web services firm Xignite, partnered on the deal.

Google Finance’s Matthew Simmons reminded visitors to that service’s blog how the company has wanted to offer this feature for a year and a half. Google discussed real-time quotes as a resource they have been working on since January 2007.

Delivering the last quoted price without the customary 15-20 minute delay will be a treat for anyone with an interest in the NASDAQ. Today probably wasn’t the greatest day in the world to start the service, as NASDAQ and other markets in general finished a little over a percentage point down in trading.

On the Official Google Blog, Matthew Simmons and Katie Jacobs Stanton write, "This is an important (and way overdue) development for everyone who consumes financial information.  Historically, real-time stock data was not freely and widely accessible.  Either buried behind subscription walls or brokerage sites, consumers typically had to live with 15 or 20 minute price delays."

 Real-Time NASDAQ Data

Now, although Simmons and Stanton are right, here are the two catches that come with this breakthrough.  First, when you’re dealing with Google Finance and NYSE stocks, you’ll still see the word "delayed" and a timestamp that’s around 20 minutes old.

Second, even as Google Finance improved, so did similar sites owned by CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and MarketWatch.  The NASDAQ OMX Group is offering free, real-time quote access through all of these entities.

What happened today isn’t much of a game-changer for Google, then, but it is a nice touch.  Just try not to get too agitated when you’re tracking the market’s ups and (mostly) downs.