A recent review of our hiring statistics over the past two years shows how determined we are in hiring only the highest-quality engineers:

• 1/4 of resumes pass initial screening and go on to the online interview
• 1/8 of those pass on the online interview and go on to phone interviews
• 1/5 of those pass first-round phone screen and go on to to second-round phone interviews
• 1/2 of those pass second-round interviews with the VP Engineering and go on to in-house interviews
• 1/2 of those pass full in-house interviews and get Rapleaf offers

Looking at these numbers, Rapleaf makes around one or two offers for every 1,000 resumes received. While such a tough screening process may check the pace of company growth, we believe great people are more than worth the time investment (see this article for more on hiring the A-players: http://blog.summation.net/2008/02/the-power-of-gr.html)

Here’s a related post on hiring during an economic downturn: http://blog.summation.net/2009/03/why-hiring-is-paradoxically-harder-in-a-downturn.html

p.s. Speaking of hiring, we’re looking for great software engineers, business developers, and product managers.  We offer $10,007 referral bonuses – please see our careers site for more details: http://www.rapleaf.com/careers

No related posts.

First, we looked at over 100 million publicly-available profiles on Facebook.   Next, we ran a rough tally on all the unique first and last names to get a general impression of popularity – we did not apply any intelligence to the data so nicknames like “Bob” and “Mike” were considered unique from “Robert” and “Michael.”

First Name Results
Here are the top 10 most popular first names on Facebook:

First Name                Count
1. John                   1,037,972
2. David                    966,439
3. Michael                798,212
4. Chris                     647,966
5. Mike                      535,065
6. Mark                     526,198
7. Paul                       511,504
8. Daniel                   504,203
9. James                    494,945
10. Maria                  484,693

Highlights:

• 9 of the top 10 most popular first names are male. This may be partially explained by the non-aggregation of nicknames since female names tend to have more variations.
• If nicknames were considered, Michael/Mike would probably be the most popular name.
• Most names are traditional American/English names even though most of the 167 million Facebook users crawled were not American.  “Mohammed,” one of the most common first names in the world, is not even in the top 100.

Last Name Results
Here are the top 10 most popular last names on Facebook:

Last Name                Count
1. Smith                1,049,158
2. Jones                   520,943
3. Johnson              440,978
4. Lee                        392,709
5. Brown                  375,444
6. Williams             372,486
7. Rodriguez          328,984
8. Garcia                  311,477
9. Gonzalez             277,987
10. Lopez                 269,896

Highlights:

• The last names list is more representative of Facebook’s global reach than first names.  Surnames like Lee, Rodriguez, and Gonzalez are not only popular in the U.S., but also all across the world.
• While some English last names like “Smith” prevail in popularity, they drop much faster than English first names.
• Compared to first names, last names drop off much faster in popularity: the 10th most common first name has 214,797 more occurrences than the 10th most common last name, and the 100th most common first name has 101,065 more occurrences than the 100th most common last name.  This is not as surprising since last names are naturally “collective buckets” for first names.

Full Name Results
Here are the top 10 full names on Facebook:

Full Name                    Count
1. John Smith             75,980
2. Joe Smith                14,648
3. Bob Smith               13,846
4. Mike Smith            11,199
5. Juan Carlos            10,254
6. Jane Smith             10,023
7. Mike Jones             10,014
8. David Smith            9,322
9. Sarah Smith             8,534
10. James Smith          8,397

Highlights:

• These names, especially the “John Smith,” are common ones that many of us have come across before.  What is more difficult to ascertain is how many of these names actually correspond to a real person instead of a false user account.
• The one non-obvious surprise is “Jane Smith.”   “Jane” doesn’t appear in the top 100 names and is not a popular name for women under 30.  This fact, combined with “Jane Smith” being a name people would make up, leads us to suspect that a big portion of those Janes on Facebook correspond to fake accounts.

Takeaways
In general, results of the study suggest that Facebook users have predominantly American and English names.  This is particularly true with first names and full names.  Given Facebook’s birth in the U.S. and quick adoption among college campuses, the popularity of American and English names are not entirely surprising.  Additionally, it is not uncommon for users in foreign countries to go by American names.

More indicative of Facebook’s global presence is the variation in last names and how the most-popular surnames will change as the social network continues to grow internationally.

For full data on the top 100 first names, last names, and full names on Facebook, see the three .cvs files here:

Top 100 First Names on Facebook.csv

Top 100 Last Names on Facebook.csv

Top 100 Full Names on Facebook.csv

Related posts:

1. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users in Swing States: Myspace is the melting pot of social networks, Hi5 is favored in New Mexico
2. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users: Sports fans are friendly and women love hockey

Rapleaf was mentioned in yesterday’s BusinessWeek article discussing the resources companies are pouring  into studying the social graph as they begin to recognize the value of online friendships.

Just a few years ago, the primary business value of friends was for our personal use, including identifying new business opportunities, getting introduced to potential clients, and seeking advice from trusted sources. This has all changed recently as both academic and corporate researchers have started to find significant opportunity for businesses to profit from an individual’s friend connections.

With research showing that friends behave similarly, social graph data can deepen understanding about consumer behavior and preferences, which in turn can be used for targeted marketing and improving their experiences.  For example, if all your friends have iPhones, you are more likely to buy one as well.  Consequently, companies equipped with insight about your friends then use it to market the iPhone or related products to you. A credit-card company recently launched a campaign using Rapleaf’s social graph data. By incorporating friendship knowledge into credit card sign-up offers, the company’s conversion rate tripled!

As researchers, experts, and companies collect more social graph data and begin to identify the most-important variables, businesses will be able to discover more about their consumers and provide them with increasingly personalized and relevant experiences.

Click here for the full BusinessWeek article.

Related posts:

1. Rapleaf, Sun Microsystems Host First Social Graph Symposium to Explore Applications of Social Graph
2. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users in Swing States: Myspace is the melting pot of social networks, Hi5 is favored in New Mexico
3. Brad Fitzpatrick, Social Graphs, and Rapleaf

Here are some highlights from the study:

• Women fans have the largest presence in the hockey segment:  they made up almost half of the hockey fans sampled, compared to baseball with only a 35% female fan base
• Basketball has the youngest fans on social networks of all three sports with 90% of fans below 35 years of age. Baseball fans tend to be older with only 78% under the age of 35
• Sports fans tend to be social creatures with over 60% having more than 50 friends online.

Related posts:

1. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users in Swing States: Myspace is the melting pot of social networks, Hi5 is favored in New Mexico
2. Rapleaf Study: Most Common First, Last, and Full Names on Facebook
3. A Bill of Rights for Social Web Users

Yesterday, Rapleaf and Sun Microsystems sponsored the first symposium dedicated to exploring the social graph and its impact on future businesses and consumers. Over one hundred of the top thought leaders, executives, and experts on the social graph attended the all-day event at Sun Microsystem’s Menlo Park campus to discuss research on the social graph and its applications in retail, marketing, and social media.

Topics covered included the following:

• Using the social graph to optimize search and ad revenue
• Making better decisions about consumer fraud and risk
• Providing consumers with a social shopping experience
• Reaching and engaging target audiences better
• Social graph theory
• Moving beyond traditional social networking business models

Check out the Social Graph Sympsosium website for more information: http://socialgraphsymposium.com/.

A copy of the Social Graph Symposium readout can be found here.

Below is a full list of participants:

• Michel Adar – Real Time Analytics Architect at Oracle
• Chris Alden - CEO at Six Apart
• Alex Algard - CEO of WhitePages
• Sam Altman – CEO of Loopt
• Pano Anthos – CEO of Hangout Industries
• Samir Arora – CEO of Glam Media
• Adam Bain – President of Audience Network at Fox Interactive Media
• Ed Baker – CEO of Demigo
• Max Bardon – President and COO of WhitePages
• James Baty – VP and CTO of Global Sales and Services at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Tom Bedecarre – CEO of AKQA
• Michael Berkley – CEO of SplashCast
• Barak Berkowitz - Fmr Chairman and CEO of Six Apart
• Gina Bianchini – CEO of Ning
• Jean Bolot – Head of Applied Research at Sprint
• Jeff Bonforte - CEO of Xobni
• Mike Bradley - Director of Solutions Development at CyberSource
• Lutz Braum – Director of Engagement Marketing at Paypal
• Ted Burns - VP Product at 4INFO
• Adam Caplan - President of Super Rewards
• Jed Carlson - COO and Co-Founder of ReverbNation
• Ninan Chacko – CEO of PR Newswire
• Kevin Chou – CEO of Watercooler
• Stephen Coggeshall – CTO of ID Analytics
• Greg Dale – CTO of Comscore
• Jason Devitt – CEO of Skydeck
• Eric di Benedetto – Investor at Active Starts
• Andre Edelbrock - CEO of Ethoca
• Konrad Feldman – CEO of Quantcast
• Matt Flannery – CEO of Kiva
• Tad Fordyce – Global Head of Information Products at VISA
• Alex Fowler – Director, Health Industries Advisory at PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Jim Fowler – CEO of Jigsaw
• Andy Frawley – President, Digital Services at Epsilon
• Albert Gadbut – CEO of AcquireWeb
• Louis Gagnon – SVP Global Consumer Product at Monster
• Sheldon Gilbert – CEO of Proclivity Systems
• Russell Glass - CEO of Bizo
• Dwight Gorall – VP Emerging Business at MyLife (Reunion)
• Michael Gorman - Global Digital Strategy Leader at Acxiom
• Mike Goslin - VP Product Development at Hangout Industries
• Joe Greenstein – CEO of Flixster
• Eric Haller – VP Strategy & Marketing at Experian
• Jeff Hammerbacher – Chief Scientist & VP Product at Cloudera
• Mike Hart – Director of Engineering, API and Community at NetFlix
• Kevin Hartz – CEO of Eventbrite
• Shawndra Hill – Professor at Wharton School (UPenn)
• Auren Hoffman – CEO of Rapleaf
• Bradley Horowitz - VP Product Management at Google
• Curtis Hougland - CEO of Attention PR 8
• Ken Howery - Managing Partner at Founders Fund
• Jonathan Hsu – CEO of 24/7 Real Media
• Joel Jewitt – VP Business Development of Rapleaf
• Kirthi Kalyanam - J.C. Penney Research Professor at Santa Clara University
• Amit Kapur – Fmr COO of Myspace
• Jon Karl – VP Business Development and Co-Founder of Iovation
• Niall Kennedy – Founder and President of Hat Trick Media
• Brian Knapp – COO of Loopt
• Erik Kokkonen – VP at CBS Interactive
• Mark Kovscek – SVP at VivaKi, Publicis Groupe
• John Kubo – CIO of Wet Seal
• Andrew Lauter – CTO of Accertify
• Tara Lemmey - CEO of LENS Ventures
• Jeremy Liew – Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Benjamin Ling – Director of Partnerships, Content, and Platforms at YouTube
• Richard Ling – General Partner at Rembrandt Venture Partners
• Gretchen Littlefield – President of TRIPLEX
• Todd Lowdon – EVP of Strategic Alliances and Product Marketing at infoGroup
• Om Malik – Founder of GigaOm
• Kevin Marks - OpenSocial Developer Advocate at Google
• Paul Martino – CEO of Aggregate Knowledge
• Curt Marvis – President of Digital Media at Lionsgate
• Marissa Mayer – VP Search Products & User Experience at Google
• Dave McClure – FF Angel Investor at Founders Fund
• Jager McConnell - Director of Product Marketing at Salesforce
• Patrick McKenna - President of HighRidge Global
• Bill McKiernan - CEO of CyberSource
• James Mendelsohn – VP of Corporate Strategy at Capital One
• Chris Michel – Managing Director of Nautilus Ventures
• Rosemarie Montroy – CMO of Direct Media
• Lisa Moore – SVP Business Development at Direct Media
• Dave Morin – Senior Platform Manager at Facebook
• Zaydoon Munir - Global Data Officer at Experian Marketing Services
• Bassel Ojjeh – SVP Strategic Data Solutions at Yahoo!
• Laurent Pacalin – CMO of FICO
• Jay Parikh - SVP of Engineering at Ning
• DJ Patil – Chief Scientist at LinkedIn
• Joe Paulsen – SVP & GM of Integrated Marketing Services at Experian Marketing Services
• Jan Pedersen – Chief Scientist of Live Search at Microsoft
• Barney Pell – CEO of Powerset
• Peter Pham – CEO of BillShrink
• Joel Pulliam - VP Product Development at Clearspring Technologies
• Keith Rabois – Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Slide
• Scott Radeztsky - Chief Technologist, Amercias Technical Sales at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Arvind Rangaswamy – Professor at Penn State
• Vaughn Rhodes - VP Search Products at MyLife (Reunion)
• John Ripa – Data Products Group Leader at Acxiom
• Marc Ruxin – EVP and Chief Innovation Officer at McCann
• Jessica Schell - SVP Strategy at NBC Universal Digital Media
• Sonja Schindeler- VP Fraud at ACI Worldwide
• Robert Scoble - Managing Director at Rackspace
• Dave Selinger – CEO of RichRelevance
• Danny Shader – CEO of Kwedit
• Premal Shah – President of Kiva
• Clara Shih – Author of The Facebook Era
• Cory Siddens - Sr. Product Manager of Risk at CyberSource 9
• Joseph Smarr - Chief Platform Architect at Plaxo
• Marc Smith - Chief Social Scientist at Telligent Systems
• Vivek Sodera - Co-Founder of Rapleaf
• David Spitz – Group-Wide Strategy and Business Development, Digital at WPP
• John Stanford – Principal Field Technologist and Sr. Architect at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Seth Sternberg – CEO of Meebo
• Chris Stevens – VP Marketing at SimpleTuition
• Charlie Stryker – CEO of Venture Development Center
• Mike Svatek – VP of Product Strategy at Bazaarvoice
• Michael Tanne - EVP Business Development & Partner Products at MyLife (Reunion)
• Rick Thompson - Chairman and Co-Founder of Playdom
• Jeffrey Tinsley – CEO of MyLife (Reunion)
• Greg Tseng – CEO of Tagged
• Jessica Vascellaro – Reporter at Wall Street Journal
• Kevin Walsh – SVP of Analysis at Advanta
• Omar Wasow – Co-Founder of Blackplanet
• Duncan Watts – Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo! & Professor at Columbia
• Andreas Weigend – Professor at Stanford/UC Berkeley
• Michael Wolf – Fmr COO and President of MTV Networks

Related posts:

1. Rapleaf, Social Graph Research, and Online Friendships in Latest BusinessWeek
2. Brad Fitzpatrick, Social Graphs, and Rapleaf
3. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users in Swing States: Myspace is the melting pot of social networks, Hi5 is favored in New Mexico

The following are some of the study’s key findings:

• Top social networks with significant presence in the swing states are Myspace and Facebook, followed by Bebo and Hi5
• New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and New Mexico have a higher percentage of young citizens (18-24 year olds) relative to other swing states
• Hi5 is heavily used in New Mexico (presidential candidates should increase presence on Hi5 if looking to reach voters in NM)
• High correlations between Latinos and Hi5 users, Caucasians and Facebook/Bebo users, African Americans and Blackplanet users, and between Asians and Friendster users. With little to no correlation between race and its users, Myspace is the melting pot of social networks.

Related posts:

1. Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users: Sports fans are friendly and women love hockey
2. Rapleaf Study: Most Common First, Last, and Full Names on Facebook
3. A Bill of Rights for Social Web Users