With Facebook's May 18-scheduled initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on the NASDAQ round the corner, the social network has hit the road this week, with its IPO `road show', in an attempt to entice investors ahead of its forthcoming stock offering.

The Facebook IPO road show kicked off - to a rather "rough start," as per media report - on Monday in New York. The IPO tour has, till now, hit New York and Boston; and the future road show stops include Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and the social network's Palo Alto, California, headquarters. The show will finally return to New York before the company's IPO on May 18.

According to reports, the Facebook road show hit a rough patch right at the outset, with a number of potential investors in attendance at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City complaining that they would have preferred to have the company focus on its fundamentals from the start of the meeting.

In addition, the road show's New York opening also witnessed the eruption of a crisis of sorts when Wall Street analysts expressed their displeasure at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's attire - his trademark `hoodie' and jeans - for the important meeting with potential investors.

However, notwithstanding the two mentioned issues highlighting the "rough start" to Facebook's IPO road show, Andi Gutmans - co-founder and CEO of PHP software developer Zend - said that Facebook's worldwide popularity gives it "the opportunity to both meet and exceed investors' expectations."