Facebook is planning to go public on May 17 according to multiple sources, granted the social network is able to get all of the necessary paperwork through the Securities and Exchange Commission in time. There's little doubt that Zuckerberg's company is already well into the process but the acquisition of Instagram that took place last week could potentially slow matters down.

The news backs up earlier reports that said the company would hit the stock market during the third week of May. Furthermore, the company is still expected to be valued at around $100 billion with hopes of raising roughly $10 billion based on that valuation. Many are saying that this is the most anticipated stock offering since Google went public some eight years ago.

The NY Times recently reported that during the talks to acquire Instagram, a value of $104 billion was discussed. This would put share prices around $40 each with 2.51 billion fully-diluted shares outstanding. Such an IPO would put Facebook in the same category as Amazon, McDonalds and Visa.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are said to have pushed up the Millennial Media IPO to early April to "make room" for Facebook in May.

There's still roughly one month left and anything could happen between now and then to alter the IPO date. Should the deal go through at the discussed $104 billion, the company would be worth more than LinkedIn, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga combined.