Eight years ago, Facebook was started in a dorm room at Harvard University. Now it’s about to become a public company, valued at US$100-billion. Those must have been the craziest eight years of Mark Zuckerberg’s life.
As the social network’s initial public offering (IPO) is scheduled for tomorrow, it seems like a good time to reflect on what the company has become, and ponder if you’ll be one of the investors to snatch up a little part of Facebook for somewhere between US$28 and US$35.
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This infographic offers a concise summary of everything that’s been going down in the world of Facebook, and just how successful the company has become. Did you know that 2-billion posts are ‘liked’ everyday on Facebook? Or that 85% of the populations of Turkey, Chile and Venezuela use Facebook, but 0% of people in China do? Or that it’s worth more than Boeing… yes, the company that makes aeroplanes. Sorry, what? What does Facebook do? Enable you to stalk people, share photos of your cat and tell all your friends about what you had for breakfast (oh, and plan protests that can help topple governments).
Even with all the talk around the IPO, there are still investors who aren’t exactly counting the minutes until they can hand over their cash for a stake in the company — most recently, Warren Buffett (number three on Forbes’ list of billionaires) decided he would rather buy some shares in General Motors than Facebook, thank you very much. And if you were around during the days of Myspace, you’ll appreciate the unhappy ‘comments’ in the infographic by founder Tom Anderson. Ok, technically, Myspace is still around — you can even log in and sign up to Myspace using your Facebook account. Which, if you think about it, says a lot about how successful Facebook has become.
