Facebook in the LA Times
November 18, 2007
by Lennie Appelquist
Finally an article in the mainstream press that gets it. In today’s Los Angeles Times there is (was, if your reading this another day) a very goood article about Facebook. The article, titled: Heads are turning to Facebook really does a great job of explaining the position that Faceboook finds itself in today.
As The Article explains, Facebook started in a Harvard University dorm room less than four years ago, and first spread like wildfire among college students. Last year, it opened membership to the world, and the wildfire is still raging. Facebook now has more than 54 million users, second among social networking sites behind only Beverly Hills-based MySpace. And it’s sucking up Web traffic and Silicon Valley engineering talent.
Facebook is taking some of the attention away from Silicon Valley darling Google. And why is it gettting all this attention? The social networking site’s rocketing growth, cheeky business strategies and staggering valuation. Speaking of valuation, Facebook’s 23-year-old co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, suddenly finds himself in a position to one day replace Google co-founder Sergey Brin as the technology industry’s youngest self-made billionaire. This thanks a $15 billion market valuation.
Pretty amazing stuff considering that not long ago everyone sat slack-jawed at the $500 million+ pricetag that MySpace commanded.
