Lots of buzz last week about Goldman Sachs’ estimation that Facebook is worth $50 billion. The investment firm paid $450 million for less than 1% of Facebook’s stock. $450 million. For less than 1%. Crazy, isn’t it?

There’s  talk of a possible Facebook IPO in 2012. Question is…what will the company be worth then?

I’m not a finance person so I’m not going to try and call that number. Let’s have a little fun with some simpler numbers, though. Take a look at the number of Facebook active users over the years and give me your best guess on what that number will be in say…December 2012?

Number of Active Facebook Users

December 2004:         Almost 1 million
December 2005:         Over 5.5 million
December 2006:         Over 12 million
October 2007:             Over 50 million
August 2008:               Over 100 million
December 2009:         Over 350 million
July 2010:                     Over 500 million
January 2011:              Over 600 million

I wasn’t any good at “Guess the number of jelly beans in the jar” game so my guesstimate will be laughable, I’m sure. Nevertheless, I’ll start us off by guessing 1 billion active users on Facebook in December 2012.