Happy New Year, Facebook: Experian Hitwise has for the first time ranked the social network as the most frequently visited by people in the U.S. in 2010. Except that’s only when Google’s YouTube is considered as a separate property, in which case the former has 7.19 percent of visits, and the latter has 2.65 percent.
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Six men indicted for distributing or attempting to view child pornography apparently did some of the dirty work on Facebook.
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CityVille’s daily user statistics show a pattern that reflects vacation time and shortened workdays this holiday season.
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Make a new friend on Facebook after you both attend the same activity, you may notice a new activity feed story that links the event and friendship together.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission’s probe into trading of Facebook shares on private marketplaces has some asking whether the regulator might pressure the social network to have an initial public offering.

An article in The New York Times says the SEC gave Facebook permission to grant restricted stock to its employees without having to list them publicly and make the financial disclosures required of public companies.

Federal law draws the line between public and private at 500 shareholders. Facebook obviously has more than twice that number of employees, but the SEC might be concerned with how many stakeholders aren’t employed by the social network.

The auctions on SecondMarket and SharesPost of Facebook holdings are currently limited to professional investors. But new funds that own some of these shares potentially give access to a wider array of buyers.

Even so, these funds still have some prerequisites about the minimum net worth who can buy in. That combined with the rules of SecondMarket and SharesPost could conceivably slow down the growth in the number of shareholders to a level acceptable to the SEC.

Or maybe not. That’s why the regulator’s asking questions right now. Perhaps the SEC’s timing will complement other legal developments so that any pressure for a Facebook IPO would kick in after the Winklevoss twins go away.

Oral arguments for the twins’ appeal of the $65 million settlement begin next month, and the issue going before the court concerns allegations of securities fraud. Those are two words that no one wants to see in an IPO prospectus.

Do you think the SEC’s investigation of Facebook stock trades on private markets will lead to regulatory pressure for an IPO?

Even if you’re not going anywhere on New Year’s Eve, you can make your Facebook friends think you’re watching the ball drop on Times Square, with help from a new application called GetGlue.
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Just in time for all of the after-Christmas sales, OtherPage has launched a social shopping application that earns you money when you share deals with your Facebook friends.

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Billionaire investor Paul Allen is having a second go at suing Facebook for patent infringement, weeks after a federal judge dismissed his first such suit.
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On this week’s list we see a few shake-ups, and some applications that will help you ring in the New Year.  There are also a few quizzes and games that will be sure to provide you with some entertainment. This list complies the applications that are topping our weekly growth leaderboard. Be sure to look over all of the top applications on Facebook by visiting here. Check out this week’s list below.
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Facebook has dominated news headlines over the past year, especially when the social network reached the 500 million user mark this July.
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