Facebook could have chosen to avoid the pop by doing a Dutch auction-style offering, as Google (GOOG) did in 2004.
FORBES: Facebook's Pop and How To Play It
2.
In a Dutchauction, by contrast, investors make actual offers to buy at a specific price, and a computer runs through the offers and determines the "clearing price" at which all shares can be sold.
FORBES: A Better, More Honest IPO
3.
By this measure, all Dutch-auction IPOs should be failures.