Earlier this month, I did a blog entry on Facebook's acquisition of Friendfeed. Clearly, Facebook plans to become something like the Huffington Post of social media. But as I pointed out in that post, it won't just stop at being a large scale aggregator. Facebook, I suspect, has Google in its sights.
So when BusinessWeek reports that Facebook is on an aggressive recruitment campaign, picking up talent from Yahoo, GENENTECH and Google. On the face of things, Facebook looks like its doing the groundwork for a massive growth campaign but then, the company has to start making a profit.
BusinessWeek reports: "Last fall, after the financial crisis exploded, Facebook executives said they would use the downturn to gain ground on the competition. But as the crisis deepened and online advertising declined steeply, the company appeared to slow enlistment. Last November, Facebook was considering a hiring freeze for all employees except engineers, say sources familiar with its plans. Now, armed with $200 million in fresh financing raised in late May from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies, Facebook is again pushing the pedal on hiring.
Part of the reason for it is Facebook's members. There are 250 million of them and the list is growing. That's expensive to service so the company is pulling out all stops now to start generating profits. The alternative is that it would keep depending on bailouts from venture capitalists. And sooner or later, they will lose patience and start demanding a return.
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