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Botswana: Facebook Mints Youngest Billionaire
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
12 March 2008
Posted to the web 12 March 2008
Thalefang Charles
Social networking website Facebook, is the 'in thing' among youth all over the world, including Botswana.
Founded in 2004 by 19-year-old Harvard student Mark Zukerberg in his dormitory, the company has significantly grown to join the blue chip ranks. It has made its founder the youngest self-made billionaire in the process, according to Forbes. In Botswana, Gao Moleleki, who works at a local bank, is ecstatic about Facebook. "I've met friends from my past that I've not seen or heard from in longest time." Moleleki said since she heard about Facebook from a colleague at work, she now knows what her former mates are doing in life and who they are still in touch with.
The website's popular features include the Wall, a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. Status is a feature that allows users to inform their friends of their current whereabouts and actions. Users can also upload photos and albums.
The website is most popular among young executives born in the 1970s and 1980s. Facebook helps them to connect wherever they are. Katlego Selebogo, a student nurse at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone said she found out from Facebook that her former bully in high school is also a nurse.
The website is more popular among college students, most of whom have easy access to Internet facilities. Phatsimo Moagi, a student at Limkonkwing University, is a frequent visitor to the website. "It has helped me connect with my sister, who is studying in Malaysia," she says.
She has called her friends and relatives to create a Facebook page and the website has become the family's favourite. With a Facebook, page users create profiles that often contain photographs and lists of personal interests.
They exchange private or public messages and join groups of friends.
Wikipedia reports that in 2005, Zukerberg bought the domain name facebook.com from the Aboutface Corporation for $200,000 and dropped 'the' from its name. In the past week, it was announced that he is now worth $1.5bn. He made it to Forbes list of billionaires as one of the youngest ever self-made tycoons of 2008.
Reports say in a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey (USA) based limited liability company specialising in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named as the second most in-thing among undergraduates. It tied with beer and sex and lost only to the iPod.
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