Tanáiste and Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment, Mary Coughlan TD announced today that Facebook is making Dublin the location of its international headquarters.
From there, they will run all of their international operations and provide support to Facebook users in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
“After exploring various locations throughout the region, we decided Ireland was the best place to establish our new headquarters,” says Sheryl Snadberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer. “As we grow and strive to make Facebook into a place for people around the world to connect and share information, we need local operations to better advance our efforts. The talent pool in Dublin is world-class and recruiting local talent will help us better understand the needs of local users and the regional dynamics that, in turn, can give us better insight into what features matter most.”
The Irish Times spoke with Don Faul, Facebook’s chief of online operations. “Mr Faul refused to be drawn on speculation as to how many positions would be created as a result of the move to Dublin, other than to say the company ‘would be starting small,'” reports the Times.
International operations are of the utmost importance to a company like Facebook, who has managed to top MySpace usage in about every location besides the U.S. (though they are creeping up on them here as well), if they hope to maintain growth and stay ahead. However, as AllFacebook points out, there is a possibility that they could be growing too big for their britches:
The company continues to grow rapidly and given their rapid push to grow internationally, one has to wonder if the company will still be able to operate at break-even. European traffic for Facebook has continued to grow recently. The company has definitely faced challenges though as it hired Smaboo, an agency in Germany, to throw parties and attract the attention of local citizens.
Facebook has job openings for internationalizations listed on its website, specifically in the area of language management. Responsibilities for such a position include working with vendors and users to ensure that all required components are translated and tested, reviewing and approving final translations before they get published, and performing translations as needed. Interestingly, only Palo Alto, California is listed as a location at this point, but you would almost have to expect Dublin positions to be posted before long.
