Fackbook Founder: Facebook is a social tool, not a community

Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, the nation's second-biggest social networking site, has been interviewed by Time magazine. He talked about the future of Facebook, his day's work and so on, and said that Facebook was not an online community but a social tool.

Here's what the interview is about:

Time: Facebook is going through a fast-growing period, with up to 150,000 new subscribers a day, three times times faster than MySpace, and what is the reason for this growth?

Zuckerberg: For a while, we actually suppressed user growth. Initially only university students can register. At the earliest, only the students of Harvard University who I went to school could register, and then open to all universities, all high schools, many companies can register, now anyone can register. The pace of growth is increasing at a frantic rate, but the speed of the past is one-fold per annum.

Time: Is Facebook's popularity related to its focus on real identity? In your website, the user information if the reality deviation is too far is not in line with the service policy.

Zuckerberg: Well, true identity is an important part of Facebook. Our philosophy is that people in the world have real interpersonal relationships, people communicate the most natural and effective people around them. If Facebook can simulate this interpersonal connection on the Web, we can share information, photos, videos or activities with a variety of applications or tools. The foundation of all this is that relationships are real. This is also the difference between Facebook and many websites. We don't think of ourselves as an online community, we're not going to build a community, we're going to build a new human connection.

Time: Why do you call Facebook a "social tool" rather than a "social network"?

Zuckerberg: I think people have some misconceptions about "social networks". Many companies call themselves social networks, but each has its own purpose. Some are to maintain the business network, some websites are actually media portals, what Facebook wants to do is to make people communicate more effectively, get information and share information. We always emphasize the "tools" attribute of Facebook.

Time: In September, you rejected a 1 billion dollar takeover offer from Yahoo, and you rejected the 750 million dollar offer from the company. Two months ago, you said Facebook wanted to remain independent.

Zuckerberg: that's it. As a company, we focus on what we are doing instead of quitting. We believe that if we can make a good product, Facebook will bring more value to people's lives. In fact, more than half of Facebook's users log on to the site every day because Facebook allows them to communicate more effectively with their friends. We do not want to sell the company, and in the short term we will not consider the IPO, which is not the company's current core focus.

Time: If Facebook does not transfer and does not consider listing, how can you repay those investors who have invested 38 million of dollars?

Zuckerberg: They are very supportive of our decision. They also want to build a remarkable company. If you look at the course of our development--two years ago when we got venture capital from Accel--we would know that they were not in a hurry to get paid. We have plenty of time to build good products.

Time: Facebook is recruiting a stock Commissioner, is this a sign that the company will be listed?

Zuckerberg: No, it's not. We have 250 employees and we have started to reward stock options and we need someone to take care of it. One day, if we have a chance to go public, stock options are a good thing and a part of the company's development. A lot of people pay attention to this thing, I feel very interesting.

"Time": For the past few months, the frenzy surrounding Facebook is escalating.

Zuckerberg: Recent concerns, especially in the media sector, I think are related to Facebook's release. It's a big deal for the first time that we can get engineers who are not working on Facebook to develop apps, and a lot of developers are getting a new development opportunity through the Facebook platform. There are many companies whose entire product is an application on the Facebook platform. This gives them an opportunity to provide an opportunity for the investors behind them, an exciting news for the business community. Similarly, our users can get more service, they are also very excited.

Time: What's your big plan for the company? How will Facebook develop over the next 3-5 years?

Zuckerberg: The next 3-5 years, it's hard to answer questions. However, we need to do a lot of work along the current trajectory of development. Now we have 30 million active users. There is much more to be done. There are many applications that can be developed to allow people to share information in different ways. I want the user base to continue to grow, and some advertisers have the opportunity to communicate with people in a natural way as if they were communicating with each other. All these things will develop and will be perfected.

Time: How are you going to generate revenue from these 30 million users in addition to the exclusive use of online advertising to Microsoft?

Zuckerberg: Online advertising is most effective if it is closely related to people's activities. People share information on Facebook, and there is an opportunity for a new online advertising model. In the next few months or years, we will see similar ads.

Time: Facebook has a monthly page flow of up to 40 billion, the sixth largest website in the United States and the largest photo-sharing site. What kind of internationalization strategy do you have?

Zuckerberg: A lot of our growth now comes from the international market. We have 10% to 15% of users from Canada and the UK has a huge user base. We have not yet translated Facebook into other language versions, and we are doing the work and will be finished soon. What we are doing now is aimed at people of different ages, different parts of the world.

Time: Where have you been on your recent vacation?

Zuckerberg: And my parents went out for a spin.

Time: Three years ago, you created Facebook in a Harvard dorm, now a full-time entrepreneur, how did you spend your day?

Zuckerberg: Get up in the morning, I walk to work. The company is only four blocks from where I live. I work, I meet other people, I talk about things all day, and then I go home to sleep. I don't have an alarm clock, and if someone needs to wake me up, I have a BlackBerry next to me.

Time: You're a 23-year-old CEO of Silicon Valley, managing a High-growth, High-profile, High-tech company, how do you cope with all the pressure?

Zuckerberg: I read an interview with Steve Jobs that day, and he said: "If you want to do something, you have to be very, very passionate about it, otherwise it doesn't make any sense." "It takes a lot to build Facebook, and if you don't, if you don't think it's important, it's incredible." One of the reasons Facebook gives me pleasure is that we already have a smart team that comes from different backgrounds, has different experiences, and thinks in different ways. Many people always put us in a bucket: When to sell it? What are you going to do? What are the development strategies? Many people are more concerned about why we recruit a stock commissioner. However, they are not very interested in me, or for the team around me. What we are focusing on is building Facebook.