New York Times | February 22, 2011 | Miguel Helft
The fight for talent between Google and Facebook — or more precisely, the flow of Google employees to Facebook — is not just a Silicon Valley affair.
Facebook has hired Alexandre Hohagen, the top Google executive in Latin America, to be its vice president for sales in the region, the company said in a press release issued in São Paulo last week. Mr. Hohagen had helped to establish Google’s Latin American offices some six years ago and later served as general manager of Google Brazil and then as vice president of Google Latin America.
Facebook said the appointment of Mr. Hohagen underscored its commitment to the region and said it planned to build a local advertising team there.
Brazil has plenty of significance in the battle between Google and Facebook. It is one of the few large markets where Google’s social network, Orkut, is still larger than Facebook’s. Facebook has been expanding aggressively overseas. In July, it pulled even with Orkut in India. (Facebook is still struggling in other countries, like Japan, but its rivals there, and in other countries, are home-grown.)
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