A new report on Tuesday said that Facebook Inc.'s    Facebook Inc. Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company recent acquisitions could delay its initial public offering until after Memorial Day, may as late as mid-June.

Reuters cited an unnamed source who said buying photo-sharing site Instagram for $1 billion and acquiring a bundle of AOL patents from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) will add about a week to Facebook's IPO timetable.

That is because the Menlo Park-based social network will have to talk over the impact of those deals with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company had been expected to go public on May 17 or May 24, in an effort to debut before the holiday.

Apple, Cisco Systems, Google, VMware and Kaiser Permanente    Kaiser Permanente Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company had the most jobs posted for Silicon Valley positions in March help wanted ads, according to a monthly report from state labor officials.

The report from the Labor Market Information Division of the Employment Development Department showed thousands of ads for registered nurses and a variety of tech jobs, including computer software application engineers, Web developers, marketing managers, computer systems analysts, and software engineers and testers.

In the San Jose metro region, Cisco listed 1,482 jobs, Apple had 1,378, VMware had 856 and Google had 780. Salesforce listed 779 jobs in the San Mateo-San Francisco region.

Kaiser listed about 1,048 jobs in the Oakland-Fremont-Hayward area.

The Cybercoders tech recruiting service listed more than 1,200 positions in the San Jose and San Francisco-San Mateo metros.

The spotlight is shining on Silicon Valley’s business software companies Friday, with both Sunnyvale-based Proofpoint and Santa Clara-based Infoblox posting successful IPOs.

Proofpoint rang the Nasdaq opening bell, while Infoblox rang its counterpart on the New York Stock Exchange.

Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele said it’s “been an exciting day” that marks a “very important milestone in the company’s history.”

“You can walk out to Times Square and you can see Proofpoint banners and Proofpoint videos playing on the jumbotron,” he said when I caught up with him briefly by phone Friday morning.

Proofpoint’s stock closed at $14.08, up 8.31 percent from its initial price of $13. The company sold 6.3 million shares in the offering and raised $82 million.

Infoblox’s stock, originally priced at $16, closed up 33 percent at $21.30. The company sold 7.5 million shares, raising $120 million.

Both companies exceeded their target fundraising by healthy margins.

Menlo Park City Council unanimously accepted Facebook Inc.'s    Facebook Inc. Latest from The Business Journals Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Which social network is best for your brand? MIT prof. Tim Berners-Lee: Demand your personal data from Facebook and GoogleAds on Facebook see decline in click-throughs Follow this company offer of more than $14 million and development concessions that opens the way to expand the social networking giant's headquarters.

The company hopes to eventually employ as many as 9,400 employees on two campuses in Menlo Park — 6,600 on the 1-million-square-foot campus it now occupies and 2,800 on a nearby 440,000-square-foot (west) campus it wants to build.

It is only permitted to have up to 3,600 at the original site now, which is what sparked negotiations and the offer that the city agreed to Tuesday.

Among the terms, Facebook has agreed to cap the number of vehicles that enter or leave its campus between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

It has also agreed to one-time payment of $1.1 million for the city's unrestricted use toward capital improvement projects and an annual payment to the city over a period of at least 10 years that will increase incrementally over time: $800,000 in each of the first 5 years, $900,000 in years 6-10 and $1 million in years 11-15.

New research into the world's top startup hubs shows once again why Silicon Valley remains the global hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Startups here raise more money, have a bigger ecosystem to tap into, are more successful, create more jobs and are more likely to be designed to change the world than simply make money.

So says the Startup Genome Project, a research effort begun last year that aims to help make startups more successful.

The results of the comparison of the world's top startup locations was published Wednesday on TechCrunch.

It's interesting to note because there has been a groundswell of stories recently talking about whether startups really need to be located in Silicon Valley.

While the advantages here are shrinking a bit, they are still formidable.

Key points:

— The support system for startups in Silicon Valley is three times bigger than New York City, 4.5 times bigger than London, 12.5 times bigger than Berlin, and 38 times bigger than Boulder.

— That raises the likelihood of success. Silicon Valley startups succeed (defined as reaching scale stage) 22 percent more than they do in New York City and 54 percent more than in London.

— There is more money raised by startups here, 2 to 3 times more than anywhere else.

— Startups create more jobs here: 11 more than in New York and 38 percent more than in London.

— The reason for starting up a company in Silicon Valley is 30 percent more likely than anywhere else to be trying to change the world. New Yorkers are 50 percent more likely to be primarily trying to make a good living and Londoners are twice as likely to be looking to flip their business for a good profit.

— Don't bother coming here is you aren't ready to work hard. Silicon Valley startup crews put in 35 percent more hours than those in New York. Average work day here is 9.5 hours, versus 8 hours in London and 7 in NYC.

— Valley startups are ready to turn on a dime. So-called "pivots" where the original business model is tossed for a new one happens 45 percent more on average in Silicon Valley than in New York City and 33 percent more than in London.

There are more conclusions that can be found at the Startup Genome blog, which you find by clicking here.

But in the end, it would appear that Silicon Valley is unquestionably the place to be if you have an idea for a startup that you think may change the world. But be ready to work hard and get ready to adapt quickly.

The 10 most active startup ecosystems in the world, according to the research, are:

1. Silicon Valley (actually more like the Bay Area since they throw in San Francisco and Oakland, along with the San Jose and Palo Alto metro areas).

2. New York City.

3. London.

4. Toronto.

5. Tel Aviv.

6. Los Angeles.

7. Singapore.

8. Sao Paolo.

9. Bangalore.

10. Moscow.

Other U.S. cities that made the list include Seattle at No. 13, Chicago at No. 15, Boston at 18, Austin at 19 and Washington, D.C. at No. 24.

Groupon, which already has about 200 engineers working out of its Palo Alto office, is looking to hire as many as 100 more, boosting the Chicago-based company's headcount out West, the company tells us.

Groupon is going to host a big recruiting event for the office later this spring. The company is already buying billboards along the highways running from San Francisco to the South Bay.

The people who work for Groupon's research and development office in Silicon Valley are mostly data analysts, technologists,and developers.

The office works mostly on mobile and merchant products, including some apps for Groupon Merchants like one that allows merchants to scan groupons with their iPhones. The Groupon Scheduler also came out of the Palo Alto office.

Because Groupon has grown the office's headcount mostly through acquisition, about one-in-three employees out there are former CEOs or startup entrepreneurs.

Groupon's 40,000 square foot Palo Alto office is the building where Google's Android boss, Andy Rubin, built a company called Danger (which eventually sold to Microsoft). It's also where Dreamworks came up with the Shrek franchise.

In typical joke-making Groupon fashion, the office's first floor conference rooms are named for dangerous situations. Room names include “IRS Audit”,  "Lion Tipping," and “Zombie Invasion."

In January, Ford Motor Company announced it would build its first-ever West Coast R&D center in Silicon Valley. On Friday, Ford announced it has chosen downtown Palo Alto as the place to build it.  The new location will join research divisions already located in Dearborn, MI; Aachen, Germany; Nanjing, China; and Tel Aviv, Israel.

In January, K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior technical leader for open innovation with Ford Research and Innovation, told Xconomy that Ford was setting up shop in Silicon Valley to take advantage of the software development talent there as the automaker continues to increase its focus on in-car connectivity and the interaction between devices and cloud-based computers. Ford plans to recruit local employees in addition to rotating in employees from other Ford locations.

“The most exciting thing is the potential for really interesting interactions with startups,” Prasad said, adding that if a startup has a particularly compelling idea that’s not up to scale, Ford is willing to step in and co-create.

Competitor General Motors opened an “advanced technology” office in Palo Alto, CA, in 2006. Numerous European and Japanese carmakers also have outposts in Silicon Valley.

Ford Motor Company is launching a research lab in Silicon Valley, following a string of other car companies to do the same, according to the Associated Press.

The lab opening, reported Thursday night, will help the company “scout out new technology and stay ahead of trends,” according to the report.

“This is a very natural extension into one of the most innovative communities in the world,” said Ford Chief Technical Officer Paul Mascarenas.

The lab will employ 15 researchers who rotate in and out from Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, and will focus on integrating phones and other devices into cars, new safety measures, and other innovations, according to the report.

Ford joins Tesla Motors, General Motors and VW in taking advantage of Palo Alto’s brain trust to focus on car innovation.

The move follows a major December report that found Silicon Valley to be leading the charge in electric vehicle technology.

Beyond being a research hotspot, Palo Alto has also been quick to begin moving toward electric cars. The city has begun upgrading infrastructure to support the surge in power consumption, and an annual electric car rally has become a popular, festive celebration of the technology.

It's been called the Gig Economy, Freelance Nation, the Rise of the Creative Class, and the e-conomy, with the "e" standing for electronic, entrepreneurial, or perhaps eclectic. Everywhere we look, we can see the U.S. workforce undergoing a massive change. No longer do we work at the same company for 25 years, waiting for the gold watch, expecting the benefits and security that come with full-time employment. We're no longer simply lawyers, or photographers, or writers. Instead, we're part-time lawyers-cum- amateur photographers who write on the side.

Today, careers consist of piecing together various types of work, juggling multiple clients, learning to be marketing and accounting experts, and creating offices in bedrooms/coffee shops/coworking spaces. Independent workers abound. We call them freelancers, contractors, sole proprietors, consultants, temps, and the self-employed.

And, perhaps most surprisingly, many of them love it.

This transition is nothing less than a revolution. We haven't seen a shift in the workforce this significant in almost 100 years when we transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Now, employees are leaving the traditional workplace and opting to piece together a professional life on their own. As of 2005, one-third of our workforce participated in this "freelance economy." Data show that number has only increased over the past six years. Entrepreneurial activity in 2009 was at its highest level in 14 years, online freelance job postings skyrocketed in 2010, and companies are increasingly outsourcing work. While the economy has unwillingly pushed some people into independent work, many have chosen it because of greater flexibility that lets them skip the dreary office environment and focus on more personally fulfilling projects.

Over the coming weeks, I will be writing about this profound shift and the three major trends that are central to it. These trends will have an enormous impact on our economy and our society:

1) We don't actually know the true composition of the new workforce. After 2005, the government stopped counting independent workers in a meaningful and accurate way. Studies have shown that the independent workforce has grown and changed significantly since then, but the government hasn't substantiated those results with a new, official count. Washington can't fix what it can't count. Since policies and budget decisions are based on data, freelancers are not being taken into account as a viable, critical component of the U.S. workforce. We're not acknowledging their prevalence and economic contributions, let alone addressing the myriad challenges they face.

2) Jobs no longer provide the protections and security that workers used to expect. The basics ­ such as health insurance, protection from unpaid wages, a retirement plan, and unemployment insurance ­ are out of reach for one-third of working Americans. Independent workers are forced to seek them elsewhere, and if they can't find or afford them, then they go without. Our current support system is based on a traditional employment model, where one worker must be tethered to one employer to receive those benefits. Given that fewer and fewer of us are working this way, it's time to build a new support system that allows for the flexible and mobile way that people are working.

3) This new, changing workforce needs to build economic security in profoundly new ways. For the new workforce, the New Deal is irrelevant. When it was passed in the 1930s, the New Deal provided workers with important protections and benefits ­ but those securities were built for a traditional employer-employee relationship. The New Deal has not evolved to include independent workers: no unemployment during lean times; no protections from age, race, and gender discrimination; no enforcement from the Department of Labor when employers don't pay; and the list goes on.

The solution will rest with our ability to form networks for exchange and to create political power. I call this "new mutualism ." You will be reading more about this idea in subsequent articles from me next week, as I believe that new mutualism will be at the core of the new social support system that we need to build for the new workforce.