Facebook has hired Chamath Palihapitiya, a former executive at Time Warner's AOL unit, to fill the post of VP of product marketing and operations, according to Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker.

Palihapitiya, who helped turn around AOL's instant messaging division, will leave his post as a principal at the Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm.

Facebook, which has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, played its cards close to its vest, declining to make Palihapitiya available to the press, and gave few details of his hiring.

Bloggingstocks.com speculated that Palihapitiya's hiring could signal a move by Facebook to go public.

Facebook, which has charged hard onto MySpace's turf by increasing its visitors by 89 percent in May, according to comScore, has been named as a potential mate for many internet giants hungry to acquire a hot property.

Yesterday, rumors circulated that Google had an interest in Facebook, while in June there were reports that Yahoo! was eager to court the social networking site.