Facebook’s big, but in the UK, Bebo’s bigger - according to Hitwise, this social networking site has about 1.5 times the market share of its American competitor. Facebook would, of course, like to change this, and to that end, it’s opening an office in London.
Rhys Blakely of the Times Online describes the UK as Facebook’s fastest-growing market, so the move is probably a wise one. It may raise a few eyebrows, though - Facebook will apparently inhabit the center of Soho, which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, used to be more of a whore’s alley than a Silicon Valley.
Meh. It looks like there are now plenty of places for Facebook employees to grab lunch and dinner, anyway.
Also, this expansion comes right as there’s word that Facebook could enter another round of financing (indeed, I owe a hat tip to Kara Swisher for both stories). And by “enter another round of financing,” I mean “collect bags of money from the hundreds of firms and investors throwing them Facebook’s way.” Land in London isn’t exactly cheap, so that aspect of the deal may work out nicely.
Whether or not having a London office will help Facebook’s UK market share simply remains to be seen.
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Comments
A perfect home
I love wandering through Soho. Though less sordid now and all it's truly sordid bits run by Albanian mobsters, it's still got some kitche red-light lustre.
The Facebook move is fantastic, and shows a little more about the honest connection between e-commerce, web 2.0 and old fashioned whoring. Silicon Valley should strive for such transparency.
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