According to WSJ, business social networking site LinkedIn plans to head for an IPO within a few months. Sources say that the company is likely to file an S-1 registration statement during the first quarter, with 3 underwriters including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley. Shortly after the news broke, the site displayed a 404 Not Found error message for about an hour.

“The decision was made in the fourth quarter of 2010, before news of the Facebook deal surfaced earlier this week.

“Anybody who is suggesting timing is a function of Facebook misses the point completely,” a person familiar with the matter said. LinkedIn made the decision “well before the Facebook news. This has been in the works for months,” the person said.”

LinkedIn and the entire social-networking industry are a huge market segment in IT, but in our recent coverage we discussed how only 3% of LinkedIn ID usage is on business websites. Nonetheless, LinkedIn recently improved its polling and mobile features , increasing its value even further.

LinkedIn is not the only company who’s after an IPO. Skype is also headed an IPO, and the same is probably true for Facebook though not in the near future, even in light of their recent $500B funding. A new market strategy has recently stirred a lot of buzz about the prospect the social-networking giant is going public, which would probably not be a bad move at all considering its – and the industry’s – towering value.