(no subject)
Interview with the Facebook
By Abhinav Kumar
The Internet is an amazing resource. Why, with a few keystrokes we can have an unlimited amount of information (and pornography) available instantaneously. With faster and portable connections to the World Wide Web, we even have the opportunity to check our e-mails approximately 5,000 times a day. This immense and completely necessary convenience gives us the ability to learn how to win a million dollars and how make certain portions of our body larger using natural methods, making the need to do other things (such as eating or thinking) completely unnecessary.
I myself spend a regrettable and pathetic 8 hours a day surfing the Internet, googling pictures of overweight cats and watching pirated episodes of Scrubs on YouTube.com (fairly reasonable picture quality!). Unfortunately, the place where I work has blocked off all e-mail accounts and pornography web sites so as to increase productivity (and decrease dis-productivity), leaving me with a pitiful 99.98f the Internet to surf.
However, there is one Web site that I am able to access from my work. This particular Web site is known for many things, especially in the world of college students.
For instance, you can immortalize the best frat party ever! by posting pictures so that you can remember the best frat party ever! because if you can remember anything from that night, it consequently was not the best frat party ever!. This Web site allows exotic (and possibly erotic) college females to post personal information so that lonely, hormonal college males will have someone to stalk on Friday nights (in fact, Im looking up information on someone right now!). And why limit yourself to one person? You can even start a group where you can share the names of stalk-worthy co-eds!
The possibilities are endless. My friends, this college-student-encompassing, time-swallowing, cleavage-exposing, poke-riffic Web site is known to everyone as the famous CNN.com.
I am, of course, kidding.
Facebook.com was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Having humble and exclusive roots in Zuckerbergs Harvard University community, over 6,000 Harvard students signed up within the first three weeks. Since then Facebook.com has exploded to include over 6 million US college student accounts, and according to Wikipedia, an additional 20,000 new accounts are created daily.
For having been around for almost 2.5 years, Facebook.com has reached amazing success. With 1.5 million photos uploaded daily, Zuckerbergs creation ranks as the number one photo Web site on the Internet. According to ComScores MediMetrix, Facebook.com is the seventh most trafficked Web site in the US. Recently, Student Monitor conducted some research to find out what was considered popular to undergraduate students, and Facebook.com tied with beer for 2nd place (iPods being #1).
If you are not one of the few chosen ones who are Zuckerbergs Facebook friends, you can still catch a glimpse of him. Facebook legend has it that the Founder and CEO of Facebook, Inc. (who happens to be Mark Zuckerberg, for you idiots who arent following me) has forever left an imprint of himself on the Web site. All you have to do is look at the top, left-hand corner on Facebook.com, and you will see his head.
According to fatmixx.com, a group blog, politicians will be able to purchase profiles on Facebook by September 2006. This will greatly increase politicians abilities to reach young voters, a relatively untapped constituency. When asked to confirm or deny these remarks, Facebook did not respond.
However, not everyone loves Facebook.com, and not everyone loves Mark Zuckerberg. On June 22, 2006, Zuckerberg was placed on Business 2.0 Magazines 10 people who dont matter list. Also on this list was the seemingly invisible and never-heard-of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (I know, I know...I was thinking Bill Gates as well) and Ken Kutaragi, the President of Sony Computer Entertainment.
In a pioneering new effort to raise GPAs and ensure that library facilities are used for learning (and pornography) and not social networking, schools such as the University of New Mexico have even gone as far as banning Facebook.com on its campus network.
Ryan Loew of the Columbus Dispatch reported in June of 2006 that Kent State University in Ohio has given its 400 athletes a deadline of August 1, 2006, to remove their Facebook profiles or risk losing their scholarships. The reason for this was because university officials feel a need to protect both their identities and the universitys image.
Some time ago Facebook turned down a $750 million offer to sell the company and arrogantly asked for $2 billion instead. Business 2.0 Magazine referred to this as a bad move.
It seemed to me that the only reason Facebook could justify such a demand would be because it was about to come out with something totally amazing and as someone somewhere once most probably stated, ball-busting. I decided to redirect my investigative journalism skills from discovering the inner workings of a toilet and where poop goes to talking to someone who knew about Facebook.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Hughes, the official Facebook spokesperson. And unlike the 1994 Tom Cruise movie, Interview with the Vampire, I had my exclusive Interview with the Facebook.
Abhinav Kumar: How did the idea or concept of Facebook originate? Was it the aftermath of a drunken night? Or perhaps theres some sort of love story involved?
Chris Hughes: No, nothing as dramatic as that. Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard, had the idea in the winter of 2004. It was a pretty simple concept: to create a universal online database for college students with social-networking functionality. He revamped the idea of the original college Facebooksthe books of bad freshman-year ID photos and boring informationby putting them online and giving students the control over the information they wanted to share with others.
AK: What is your role in the Facebook campaign?
CH: Mark, Dustin, and I were all roommates at Harvard.
AK: How many people work for Facebook?
CH: About 120.
AK: What is the work atmosphere like for an employee of Facebook?
CH: In general, its a pretty relaxed place that takes work seriously. Sounds paradoxical probably, but thats the best way to describe. Imagine 120 20- and 30-somethings hanging out, working an insane number of hours a week, trying to build out the best site possible.
AK: Where is the Facebook HQ, and what is the HQ like?
CH: It takes up an entire building in downtown Palo Alto, CA. Imagine a couple floors with a sea of desks and meeting rooms with cool, contemporary furniture lining the walls.
AK: Where do you get your ideas?
CH: We have a team of individuals whos responsible for generating ideasand of course we listen to our users ideas and suggestions.
AK: What is your response to the argument that kids and teens waste a lot of time on Facebook?
CH: Who defines whats a waste of time?
AK: Are you friends with the people who started MySpace?
CH: MySpace is located in LA and were located around San Francisco, making it hard to make for serious friendships.
Even though this adrenaline-pumping interview one mind stimulator after another, the biggest shock came at the end. I decided to step outside of my comfort zone of being a mediocre reporter and become instead a Master of Analytical Newsreporting (M.A.N.). I was going to dig deep and discover something my editor would be proud to print.
I fastened my belt, gathered my courage of a tiger, and asked Chris Hughes what the next invention, the next plan for expansion, the next big thing for Facebook would be. To this truth-exposing question, Hughes left me with the following answer:
N/a.
And so, as quickly as my Interview with the Facebook had started, it was over.
But what does the world have in store for Facebook in the future? Rupert Murdochs FOX purchased MySpace for $580 million. According to Business 2.0 Magazine, MySpace has quickly grown into the industrys 80-million-user gorilla. Will Zuckerberg be able to resist the temptation of selling his brilliant Facebook?
In an interview with The Harvard Crimson, Harvard Universitys news publication, Zuckerberg stated, Maybe when Im bored with it, then well work something out. But I dont see that happening in the near future.
By Abhinav Kumar
The Internet is an amazing resource. Why, with a few keystrokes we can have an unlimited amount of information (and pornography) available instantaneously. With faster and portable connections to the World Wide Web, we even have the opportunity to check our e-mails approximately 5,000 times a day. This immense and completely necessary convenience gives us the ability to learn how to win a million dollars and how make certain portions of our body larger using natural methods, making the need to do other things (such as eating or thinking) completely unnecessary.
I myself spend a regrettable and pathetic 8 hours a day surfing the Internet, googling pictures of overweight cats and watching pirated episodes of Scrubs on YouTube.com (fairly reasonable picture quality!). Unfortunately, the place where I work has blocked off all e-mail accounts and pornography web sites so as to increase productivity (and decrease dis-productivity), leaving me with a pitiful 99.98f the Internet to surf.
However, there is one Web site that I am able to access from my work. This particular Web site is known for many things, especially in the world of college students.
For instance, you can immortalize the best frat party ever! by posting pictures so that you can remember the best frat party ever! because if you can remember anything from that night, it consequently was not the best frat party ever!. This Web site allows exotic (and possibly erotic) college females to post personal information so that lonely, hormonal college males will have someone to stalk on Friday nights (in fact, Im looking up information on someone right now!). And why limit yourself to one person? You can even start a group where you can share the names of stalk-worthy co-eds!
The possibilities are endless. My friends, this college-student-encompassing, time-swallowing, cleavage-exposing, poke-riffic Web site is known to everyone as the famous CNN.com.
I am, of course, kidding.
Facebook.com was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Having humble and exclusive roots in Zuckerbergs Harvard University community, over 6,000 Harvard students signed up within the first three weeks. Since then Facebook.com has exploded to include over 6 million US college student accounts, and according to Wikipedia, an additional 20,000 new accounts are created daily.
For having been around for almost 2.5 years, Facebook.com has reached amazing success. With 1.5 million photos uploaded daily, Zuckerbergs creation ranks as the number one photo Web site on the Internet. According to ComScores MediMetrix, Facebook.com is the seventh most trafficked Web site in the US. Recently, Student Monitor conducted some research to find out what was considered popular to undergraduate students, and Facebook.com tied with beer for 2nd place (iPods being #1).
If you are not one of the few chosen ones who are Zuckerbergs Facebook friends, you can still catch a glimpse of him. Facebook legend has it that the Founder and CEO of Facebook, Inc. (who happens to be Mark Zuckerberg, for you idiots who arent following me) has forever left an imprint of himself on the Web site. All you have to do is look at the top, left-hand corner on Facebook.com, and you will see his head.
According to fatmixx.com, a group blog, politicians will be able to purchase profiles on Facebook by September 2006. This will greatly increase politicians abilities to reach young voters, a relatively untapped constituency. When asked to confirm or deny these remarks, Facebook did not respond.
However, not everyone loves Facebook.com, and not everyone loves Mark Zuckerberg. On June 22, 2006, Zuckerberg was placed on Business 2.0 Magazines 10 people who dont matter list. Also on this list was the seemingly invisible and never-heard-of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (I know, I know...I was thinking Bill Gates as well) and Ken Kutaragi, the President of Sony Computer Entertainment.
In a pioneering new effort to raise GPAs and ensure that library facilities are used for learning (and pornography) and not social networking, schools such as the University of New Mexico have even gone as far as banning Facebook.com on its campus network.
Ryan Loew of the Columbus Dispatch reported in June of 2006 that Kent State University in Ohio has given its 400 athletes a deadline of August 1, 2006, to remove their Facebook profiles or risk losing their scholarships. The reason for this was because university officials feel a need to protect both their identities and the universitys image.
Some time ago Facebook turned down a $750 million offer to sell the company and arrogantly asked for $2 billion instead. Business 2.0 Magazine referred to this as a bad move.
It seemed to me that the only reason Facebook could justify such a demand would be because it was about to come out with something totally amazing and as someone somewhere once most probably stated, ball-busting. I decided to redirect my investigative journalism skills from discovering the inner workings of a toilet and where poop goes to talking to someone who knew about Facebook.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Hughes, the official Facebook spokesperson. And unlike the 1994 Tom Cruise movie, Interview with the Vampire, I had my exclusive Interview with the Facebook.
Abhinav Kumar: How did the idea or concept of Facebook originate? Was it the aftermath of a drunken night? Or perhaps theres some sort of love story involved?
Chris Hughes: No, nothing as dramatic as that. Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard, had the idea in the winter of 2004. It was a pretty simple concept: to create a universal online database for college students with social-networking functionality. He revamped the idea of the original college Facebooksthe books of bad freshman-year ID photos and boring informationby putting them online and giving students the control over the information they wanted to share with others.
AK: What is your role in the Facebook campaign?
CH: Mark, Dustin, and I were all roommates at Harvard.
AK: How many people work for Facebook?
CH: About 120.
AK: What is the work atmosphere like for an employee of Facebook?
CH: In general, its a pretty relaxed place that takes work seriously. Sounds paradoxical probably, but thats the best way to describe. Imagine 120 20- and 30-somethings hanging out, working an insane number of hours a week, trying to build out the best site possible.
AK: Where is the Facebook HQ, and what is the HQ like?
CH: It takes up an entire building in downtown Palo Alto, CA. Imagine a couple floors with a sea of desks and meeting rooms with cool, contemporary furniture lining the walls.
AK: Where do you get your ideas?
CH: We have a team of individuals whos responsible for generating ideasand of course we listen to our users ideas and suggestions.
AK: What is your response to the argument that kids and teens waste a lot of time on Facebook?
CH: Who defines whats a waste of time?
AK: Are you friends with the people who started MySpace?
CH: MySpace is located in LA and were located around San Francisco, making it hard to make for serious friendships.
Even though this adrenaline-pumping interview one mind stimulator after another, the biggest shock came at the end. I decided to step outside of my comfort zone of being a mediocre reporter and become instead a Master of Analytical Newsreporting (M.A.N.). I was going to dig deep and discover something my editor would be proud to print.
I fastened my belt, gathered my courage of a tiger, and asked Chris Hughes what the next invention, the next plan for expansion, the next big thing for Facebook would be. To this truth-exposing question, Hughes left me with the following answer:
N/a.
And so, as quickly as my Interview with the Facebook had started, it was over.
But what does the world have in store for Facebook in the future? Rupert Murdochs FOX purchased MySpace for $580 million. According to Business 2.0 Magazine, MySpace has quickly grown into the industrys 80-million-user gorilla. Will Zuckerberg be able to resist the temptation of selling his brilliant Facebook?
In an interview with The Harvard Crimson, Harvard Universitys news publication, Zuckerberg stated, Maybe when Im bored with it, then well work something out. But I dont see that happening in the near future.