I don't think Google can afford a $6 billion buyout. They're on track to make maybe $16 billion this year. Microsoft is probably the only software company with a decent interest in the web and the pocketbook to pay for a highly valued site. And the aQuantive buy is the biggest they've ever done (and probably will ever do).
This is (sort of) a misunderstanding of how most buyouts work. Google, were they to "acquire" facebook for $6B would almost certainly structure it as a stock-swap merger. This way the acquisition isn't a taxable event, and they can use stock instead of cash.
At GOOG's current market cap, $6B of dilution would be pretty minimal.
Not mention the $10B of cash equivalents (and growing, fast) on their balance sheet to buyback stock or even do a full cash deal if they were feeling crazy.
I suppose I was using "afford" somewhat loosely. I still think $6 billion would be a huge amount for Google to drop in one place, stock or (especially) otherwise.
They'll probably IPO, but there's no way they'll be Google-sized. Google is basically a money printing machine because the dominated the most monetizable activity on the internet: searching. People are looking for things to click on when they search, so if an ad comes up with something that's similar to what they're looking for, the click on it. On Facebook, people are looking for information about other people and generally zone out the ads, which is why they get such low clickthrough rates, as was reported a while back. That puts it on the opposite end of the spectrum from Google. In between are media sites, which are generally passive, but more conducive to clicking on ads than an active site where what you're looking to do is completely different from the ads.
They will be/are profitable and will probably IPO, but I don't think it'll be huge. The numbers don't justify it.
Unless they have something crazy up their sleeves, which is a definite possibility.
Remember, though, that nobody thought search was monetizable when Google dominated it. They didn't have a business model until almost 2 years in: at the time, the fad was to turn search engines into "portals" and cash in through banner advertising on the home page.
FaceBook also has the advantage of being locally-based: ads can be targetted very specifically to people within range of local businesses. People don't really search for restaurants within walking distance, and even if they did, Google doesn't know where they're located. Facebook does, however, and can display ads for local businesses that the user might not be looking for now but might want to visit later.
