With Facebook’s value in the tens of billions, an initial public offering will be attentively watched over by investors who want a chunk of their revenue.  And after years of waiting for a definitive response to the question of Facebook’s IPO, board member Peter Thiel offers a big hint, saying the massive social network will possibly go public sometime in late 2012.

“It probably will IPO at some point. The lesson from Google seems to be that you don’t go public until very late,” Thiel told Reuters on the sidelines of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Monday.

Facebook was founded by 26-yr-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg dating back to his Harvard days in 2004. With over 500,000 users, an investment in its IPO will be highly profitable. Last year, Facebook’s revenue approached $800 million.  The social network is gaining widespread mainstream appeal, even making it to Hollywood status as the inspiration of upcoming pop film The Social Network.

The social network is competing even-handedly with the likes of Yahoo and Google, which are already established players in the online industry. Facebook is backed by companies including Digital Technologies, Microsoft Corp, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka Shing and venture capital firms Accel Partners, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners.