^{Wednesday 25th August 2010}

Investors are gaining more and more interest in technology stocks, even as some still recall the money lost in the dotcom crash a decade ago. However, as social and online media come to the forefront of news viewing and networking, is it any wonder that investors want to cash in on the popularity?

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, announced plans last month to float the company within the next two years. However, investors are currently desperate to get in on the action with the demand pushing the company’s valuation to $33.7 billion based on secondary market transactions. This makes the social networking site more expensive than both Ebay and Yahoo.

Common stock in Facebook is trading as high as $76 a share as investors scramble to get a piece of the company before it files for an initial public offering, which analysts say could be the biggest technology floatation since Google’s $1.67bn IPO in 2004.

Other Silicon Valley companies such as Twitter and LinkedIn are delaying their IPO offerings in order to wait for better market conditions, but it would appear that investors cannot wait and are scrambling to get their hands on common shares.

As a private company, Facebook must limit the number of shareholders to no more than 500. People close to the company say it remains well below that threshold.