As it expands across the globe, social network Facebook will establish its official international headquarters in the Irish capital of Dublin, the Irish Times reported Thursday. The announcement was made by Mary Coughlan, Ireland's minister for enterprise, trade, and employment, and the Times hinted that the company is already recruiting to build up a local workforce.
The Dublin office will be the center of Facebook's operations for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, from ad sales to technical support.
"After exploring various locations throughout the region, we decided Ireland was the best place to establish our new headquarters," Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, said in a statement to the Times. "The talent pool in Dublin is world-class, and recruiting local talent will help us better understand the needs of local users and the regional dynamics that, in turn, can give us better insight into what features matter most," she added.
The Irish government has been extremely friendly to technology companies, providing appealing tax incentives. Yahoo, Google, and eBay all have offices in Dublin as well, and Dell has chosen another Irish city, Limerick, for its European headquarters.
Dublin is slightly more affordable than that other European anglophone metropolis: Consulting firm Mercer named London the world's third most expensive city in this year's edition of its annual rankings; Dublin came in 16th.
It's also home to the iconic Guinness brewery. That might've sealed the deal for Facebook--which now has 308,000 users in Ireland, according to the Times.
Calling all people who really, really, really want to go down in the history books, but don't have the advantage of being Sir Richard Branson: Guinness World Records has added a social network to its site, so that you can share all your wackiest exploits.
I thought we had something like that already. It's called YouTube.
Members of the Guinness World Records community, which was created using technology from the New York-based KickApps, can share audio, video, photos, and other dubious evidence of their strange talents. Right now, some of the most-viewed videos include "continuous reading marathons," the world's largest homemade bacon cheeseburger, and some kind of "elastic guy" who can do weird things with his limbs.
Biggest problem with the site? No Digg buttons. Think about it.
I'm skeptical as to just how successful an online community for avowed record breakers could be, especially given the inevitable concerns that it'll become a hotbed for Jackass-style competition. (Somebody might get hurt!) Not to mention the fact that social-networking fatigue has certainly set in for many, and signing up for yet another account just might not appeal to those outside the alpha-geek crowd who will join any cool new service. But the London-based Guinness World Records has said that the company will actually be trawling the social network for evidence of new records, so that could provide some incentive among that sector of the population that's actually willing to spend time on continuous reading marathons.
By the way, I really dug the bacon cheeseburger video--which is, of course, not available on Icanhascheezburger.com. Here it is:
- prev
- 1
- next
