It's official: The social network used by more than 900 million people worldwide is now a publicly traded company.

Facebook finally started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange today after the company priced its IPO shares at $38 dollars on Thursday, which made it the biggest technology IPO ever for the U.S. stock markets.

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A glitch processing orders delayed the public debut this morning. Additional glitches with order processing on the Nasdaq caused confusion during the early hours of trading and put a cloud over the much anticipated debut. Surprising some financial analysts, Facebook shares failed to enjoy the big price pop that hot IPOs typical enjoy. The  initial offering price of $38 jumped to $42 at the opening; but after rising a bit more, the price fell back quickly to hover around the original offering price.

As major IPOs go, Facebook's was considered a disappointment. Analysts weren't too sure how much of the weak price action was due to the general downtrend in the stock market, and how much due to the fact that Facebook upped its stock offering size and share price on the eve of the IPO. Another factor could have been concerns about the company's business prospects, especially in the mobile advertising market, as revealed in the Facebook S-1 filing.

Facebook Inc. may finally become a publicly traded company this week, with its long anticipated IPO stock offering apparently scheduled for Friday, though some news outfits are reporting it could be delayed.

The offering is expected to sell 337 shares to the public at a total cost of up to $35 per share, which would make Facebook's stock sale the biggest Internet IPO ever.

To read up on what pundits are saying about the investment prospects for this social networking giant, check out these articles:

• PC Magazine offers an overview of the IPO and what it means to various groups of users and investors
• Bloomberg News says Apple co-Founder Steve Wozniak is buying, even though Bloomberg also reported that institutional demand for the stock is lower than expected due to concerns about its slowing growth rate.

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If you're wondering why you like Facebook and Twitter as much as food and sex, researchers at Harvard may have some clues for you.

In a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reported that sharing information about ourselves -- zapping out that status update or tweet, for example-- stimulates our brain's pleasure centers just like food and sex.

It's still not clear, though, whether these happy feelings we get talking about me, me, me in tweets, status updates and other social messages are a good thing or a bad thing. It's probably both, even though a lot of people may not think so when they feel like they're suffering from social networking addiction.

Micro video sharing apps and photo sharing apps are the fastest growing category of mobile applications based on time spent using them, according to a report from mobile research firm Flurry.

The report measured which activities on smart phones are gaining speed or claiming a larger amount of time spent by users. Mobile video sharing and photo sharing claimed 89 percent more time spent by mobile phone users in March 2012 than in October 2011, the report said. Music apps were second, with time spent using those increasing 72 percent.

Flurry's conclusions were based on a sampling of millions of smart phone users; its software tracks usage for thousands of apps across major mobile operating systems. Read More...