My new issue of Fast Company magazine arrived in the mail yesterday, with a cover story about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It’s already up on their website for you to read for free.
I’m a big fan of Facebook, but have to admit I didn’t know whole lot about 22 year old (!) Zuckerberg and the company’s background before reading this story. I thought he was completely nuts for turning down a billion dollar offer from Yahoo, but I’ve reconsidered. Instead of holding out for some extra cash from a big media company, it appears that Mark and the others running the company are intent on building it bigger and better themselves to make it even more valuable.
From my perspective, Facebook is a much better social networking site than Myspace ever was, or will be. It seems like the goal there is to create the ugliest page that can also play the loudest, crappiest pop music imaginable immediately upon visiting it. It is popular in spite of its horrible design, not because of it.
On the other hand, the Facebook programmers are continually tweaking and making improvements so that your goal of communicating with friends gets easier and more meaningful. It always works, and it’s always fast. It also has a very clean design that is consistent throughout the application, so you’ll always know where to find the different tools.
Mark and the others behind Facebook have got a great thing going for them, and I wish them the best. They seem to be doing all the right things, like growing organically, being transparent, and releasing some of their tools as open source. They seem like good guys really trying to make a difference, and I hope they succeed.