Chris Hughes
Co-founder of Facebook and developer of mybarakobama.com

I attended a interesting talk by Chris hosted by the TechCouncil of MD earlier this week. Two major successes at such a young age! V Impressive! I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Chris started by noting that Information is a record of an idea. The significant change is that Information now distributed very quickly via networked screens. The web allows everyone becomes an author and as a result, people are overwhelmed by information - and it isn't getting better anytime soon.

A few metrics from Facebook:

• 350 mil users
• 50 pct users come back on any given day
• average user has 130 friends
• 70 mil users access the site using mobile devices

His thoughts about Facebook that I found interesting:

• You come Facebook as yourself, use your real name and meet people you know. This is unlike any other site.
• It is a collection of a closed networks
• Trust and privacy are paramount: Facebook is planning to release a feature to allow users to create lists of friends and then expose certain content to a specific list - I eagerly look forward to this!
  
• Facebook respects the power of the crowd
• Ensuring that the platform is useful to the users is the only way to remain relevant and keep the users engaged. This was the key focus when Chris developed mybarakobama.com.
  
• The turning point was when they opened up Facebook as a platform to allow anyone to develop applications on (repeated by Apple on iPhone and by Twitter)
• Facebook lets 350 million people create Information: digital imprints of all out actions, ideas, etc.
• All functionality is developed in a interative manner: start simple, see what works, iterate

How is the web changing society?

• transparency
• choice
• ability to create

Here are a few links to media coverage for the event: photos from the event on Flickr, an article on The Washington Business Journal, Tech/Fed Bisnow’s article, Bisonow's article and comments on Network Solutions.