Facebook could now be worth as much as $33.7bn according to valuations based on secondary market transactions. Such a figure sees it surpass Yahoo! and Ebay shows how far a few friends have come.

Ebay has a market capitalisation of $30bn and Yahoo! one of $17.8 — but it wasn’t so long ago, back in 2007, that the one time internet leader was valued at $37bn.

If Facebook goes ahead with a talked of IPO it would be the biggest since Google’s $1.67bn floatation in 2004. Is it me or does it it seems much longer ago than that? I’m guessing if you counted in web years that would be like 20.

The $33.7bn valuation is based on the $76 that investors are currently paying to buy Facebook common stock in secondary market transactions, according to the Financial Times. The acquisition of private Facebook shares appears to indicate the healthy appetite that some investors have for a big tech based IPO.

If Facebook went Twitter could be next possibly floating sometime in 2011. We know it won’t happen this year. In January Dick Costolo, chief operating officer at Twitter, ruled out a stockmarket launch this year and said that the firm has to focus on building revenues — more which we saw earlier today.

Other possible tech IPOs could include the social gaming company Zynga whose success is built in part on Facebook. The maker of games like Petville and Farmville was earlier this year valued at around $4bn. That’s a lot of farm animals and pets.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, of course, are under no pressure to public. The site’s growth remains stellar, having passed 500 million users earlier this year and it continues to expand.

Earlier today it was reported that Facebook had become the top social networking site in India. To get there Faceboook leapfrogged former leader Orkut, which is owned by Google.

Earlier this week Facebook acquired local-based social networking site shop Hot Potato for an undisclosed sum, which followed the launch of its location based service Facebook Places.

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