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He is 25 years old, with a casual manner and enormous success: the idea he had turned into one of the most-used web services in the world, and they say it was influential in electing Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States.

He is Mark Elliot Zuckerberg; the toy he created that lays the golden eggs is Facebook; and he will be here in Brazil to give a lecture (to be transmitted via the web) and a workshop  Tuesday, August 4th (see links below).

And what of it? What does this mean for him and for Facebook? And for the Brazilian Facebook users? If you don’t think this is very important, now’s the time to reconsider! After all, “what’s on your mind?” I say: welcome to the Brazilian Guide to Facebook!

• If you are interested in the lecture at the Entrepreneur Forum, at FGV in São Paulo (just for students): it will be transmitted via the web at 11am on Tuesday, August 4th, at this link;
• If you want to know about the Garage Day workshop, it is also in São Paulo on August 4th, from 5-7pm, only for pre-registered developers (it has been filled for days, but see more information here);
• If you are curious about the impact of the Facebook phenomenon, and want to think about how it will really affect the Brazilian market and your life, read on.

Warning: thus ends the simple, direct and objective part of this post (inasmuch as that is expected of a blog). The part below is a compilation of discussions by experts,   seen through my professional vision. Share your perspective in the comments, or in the contact form or by emailing me! Welcome to the Brazilian Guide to Facebook!

Facebook becomes central to the internet experience in the rest of the world

Do you know Globo, the network? It is the media company that gets the most attention from Brazilians. It’s like Orkut, which is the social network with the most Brazilian participants (and Brazil is the country with the largest number of Orkut users). We can draw a comparison, saying that Orkut is like the Globo of the Brazilian internet. For most Brazilians it is the gateway to the web - and in most cases the use of this social network is pretty much all those people do on the web.

The fact is that Facebook is, in the rest of the world, what Orkut is in Brazil: it has more than 230 million active users. Got that? See other official data, or comments from experts, or take a look at other information about Facebook here on Startupi. Social networks are used as centers of interaction and marketing (being the best online equivalent of a social life). But Facebook is considered not just a portal to the web for the majority of users, but a center for their whole internet experience (pretty much everything they do online revolves around Facebook and is integrated with it). One could say that if you lived on the internet your address would be Orkut (for now) if you are Brazilian, and Facebook if you are from the rest of the world.

Facebook has its downsides, too, even in Brazil. It confronted some controversy over its Terms of Use (which violated the authority of users over some of their own content). The recent change in the interface ran into quite a bit of negative feedback. On the other hand they have seen continued growth through things like taking Twitter’s “What are you doing?” and turning it into “What’s on your mind?” and allowing the integration of various web services. It seems the only thing Facebook hasn’t done is conquer Brazil. Are we the next frontier?

There’s a guy behind all this and he’s arriving in Brazil: to catch a ride, or give the Brazilians a ride?

The Facebook Garage Day event in São Paulo has the slogan: “Come to understand, to discuss and to learn to Facebook.” But it’s not a workshop about how to register, configure your profile, add friends and so forth. The event is for developers and those interested in integrating their website or app with the Facebook Platform. Which means that Mark Zuckerberg (the smiling blond in the photo (at left)…which is his Facebook profile photo) is directly interested in the quality, quantity and innovation of the tools for interaction that developers create based on the code released by his social network.

It also means that, even though Facebook is not following the standards of OpenSocial (developed and adopted by other sites and social networks), it allows developers to use its code and implement new functionalities via social applications. It means that Facebook’s interface is more sophisticated, fluid and diluted (or complex and chaotic) than Orkut’s (which is more “educational” for participants who are not as experienced on the web, which is ideal for digital inclusion purposes). It means that causes, brands, events, services, products and businesses have more opportunities to relate to and engage with users in sharing their content and values (where it interests them).

Since Brazil is one of the countries which gets into these things early (early adopters), intensely (heavy users) and in large numbers (massive users), embracing social media, Facebook wants to be a friend of the Brazilians (”me add?” as we say here). Clearly, helping the developers to provide interesting apps is an excellent path to take, as much for Facebook as for its users, developers and sponsors. To speak to an audience of young opinion makers studying entrepreneurship helps charm the public with “how the guy is good and does a good thing” (which increases the interest of the media, the users, the developers and the sponsors…).

People in a powerful social network versus a social network of the powerful

In 2007 the leader of Orkut was in Brazil (in this case Google’s social network was named after its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten - see photo at left).  He was there to understand the success of Orkut, not to catechize or evangelize. We can agree, it had that effect anyway. I remember having an interview via chat online with journalists and it was clear that Orkut use increased after the impact of Orkut’s visit. But what Orkut (Google’s social network) has to do: invest in a platform and in the strong support of OpenSocial developers. It has many applications as it is. Let’s see how it goes with Facebook: will it grow as a container for applications that learn from the Brazilians, or teach them?