Facebook NASDAQ Opening Bell "Hack" Revealed
This week as Facebook goes public with their IPO with NASDAQ, developers at the social network have celebrated in their own special way – by hacking the stock exchange's starting bell. What you're about to see are some relatively simple behind-the-scenes images taken by a few developers working at Facebook specifically on the NASDAQ bell ringer Mark Zuckerberg used this morning to open the stock exchange as well as the listing of Facebook for the first time in history to the public. As it turns out, Zuckerberg wasn't just ringing a bell, he was posting a Facebook status at the same time as well!
Because last night was also a Facebook Hackathon event, it only seemed natural for Facebook developers to take advantage of the event with a stock exchange hack of their own. What they did, and what the images below and above will show, is to connect the opening bell tapped by Zuckerberg this morning to his own personal Facebook page where a status was then instantly posted as he rung in. This status read, sensibly enough, "Mark Zuckerberg listed a company on NASDAQ. — with Chris Cox and 4 others."
Have a peek at the bell ringing here in video form:
Then take a peek at the gallery below, it including images photographed and added to Facebook by Facebook developer Colm Doyle. The gigantic button is pressed and the bell is rung, the bell is rung and the status is posted. As Doyle repeated per what was almost certainly something the developer crew behind this project repeated many times after hooking up the final wires: "don't press the button, don't press the button!"
Two hours after the button was pressed and Zuckerberg was able to sit back down at a computer console of some sort himself, he went ahead and commented on his own status he'd automatically generated earlier: "This is a pretty awesome hack."
Truly the simplest things are the best when it comes down to gigantic events such as this. Stay tuned for more Facebook IPO action throughout the day!
BONUS: The other people included in Zuckerberg's IPO-ringing status were as follows: Cipora Herman, Dave Kling, David Ebersman, Sheryl Sandberg (COO Facebook), and Colm Coyle. Gotta catch em all!