Facebook, the company devoted to making the world "more open and connected," finally opened its financials to the world today when it filed for an initial public stock offering.

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Facebook made a profit of $1 billion on $3.7 billion in revenue during 2011, an increase of 88 percent over its 2010 revenue, according to paperwork it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a full analysis of the 198-page document, read this summary of the Facebook IPO stock S-1 registration statement.

Facebook was incorporated in 2004 has been profitable since 2009. It took longer than expected to file to go public, which requires that it disclose its revenue and expenses in detail for the first time. The Wall Street Journal said the IPO could be one of the biggest U.S. public stock launches ever and could value Facebook at nearly $100 billion.

Facebook's IPO filing provided other interesting numbers, such as:

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Uncle Sam's top cops want a new app for peering into social media to see what people are saying that might involve illegal activity or pose threats to national security.

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The FBI put out a request for information this month as part of market research for its proposed new "social media application" project, to see if the information technology industry actually has the capability to build what it wants. Responses from technology companies and other potential vendors are due by Feb. 10.

Privacy advocates generally oppose government monitoring of social media, but so much social media chatter is already public that it won't be easy to stop development of the analytical app the FBI wants. PC World called it a "social network spy app."

The CIA already routinely monitors social media for global threats, as NPR reported in a story last week when it took a closer look at the CIA's Open Source Center for foreign intelligence. Read More...

©Tumblr's menu makes it easy to do quick multimedia posts across multiple platforms and networks.

The social blogging movement continues to gain momentum as a newer generation of blogging tools add more social networking features. In case you're wondering, social blogs are a cross between a blog and a social network. The software programs creating them are often called microblogging tools because they encourage short or "micro" posts analagous to status updates on Facebook.

Social blogs let people post short updates quickly by email or cell phone, and auto-post the same updates to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Social blogs go beyond RSS-type subscription feeds of first-generation blogs to include following and friending capabilities similar to those of Facebook and Twitter.

• Read more about social blogs.
• Learn how to use Tumblr and Posterous, two free social blogging tools.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show typically showcases prototypes and technology that are months, if not years, from hitting the market. So it's an early barometer for winds of technological change.

And when it comes to social media, one big wind at the 2012 CES last week was integration with technology of all kinds, suggesting it will be another newsy year for social networking and related services. In particular, social TV and connected cars were two areas where social media made plenty of news in Las Vegas.

In addition to TV growing more participatory and social, and cars getting social networking plugged in, four other areas likely will be ripe for social media evolution this year:

• Mobile communication
• Social marketing strategies
• Labor, staffing, job issues
• Presidential politics

Read more about social media predictions for 2012.