點擊致富——“ｍｙＹｅａｒｂｏｏｋ”創辦人的故事

現在的網絡世界真是多姿多彩，你可以找資料、聽音樂、看電影、打網游、購物……網上交友也不是新玩意了。想必很多人都聽過、或者正在使用MySpace、Facebook這些知名社交網站。那你聽說過myYearbook嗎？它現在是美國第三大社交網站，在美國青少年中人氣第一。最引人注意的是，這個網站的創辦人是今年只有18歲的凱瑟琳·庫克和她的哥哥。他們是怎樣從普通中學生打拼成百萬富翁的呢？一起來看看他們的故事——

Not long after Catherine Cook arrived at her new high school aged 15， she was flipping[翻動書頁] through an old yearbook注1 with Dave， her 16-year-old brother， when they spotted the name of a girl they both knew. Yet the yearbook picture looked nothing like her. In that moment an Internet empire was born.

You have heard of Google， MySpace， Facebook and the boy geniuses[天才] who made billions from

brilliant computer ideas. Now meet a girl genius – a New Jersey teenager who turned a stroke of[一次成功的行動]

High School inspiration into what is now the fastest-growing online social network in America.

The website she launched with her brother at Montgomery high school in Skillman， New Jersey，

has exploded into a multi-million-dollar online

business， with 10 million members of myYearbook.com

registering[登記] and 1.5 billion page views a month.

Launched in 2005 with an initial[最初的] investment of $250，000， the site is now earning more than $10

million a year in advertising sales and Cook has

become a millionaire.

Hitwise， the leading Internet monitoring[監測] group， has calculated that in June myYearbook became the third largest online social network in the United States， behind MySpace and Facebook.

“We’ve had some offers from people who want to buy us out – and a few pretty big ones，” Cook said.

“But we’re not interested right now. I’m having too much fun working on the site.”

With their joky[愛開玩笑的] style， Cook and her brother may have dealt a death blow[打擊某人] to the rather dreary[沉悶的] school annuals[年刊，年鑒] that in recent years have been read mainly by magazine editors， seeking embarrassing pictures of celebrities[名人].

“I realized when I was talking to Dave that those old yearbooks really sucked[（俚）糟糕]，” said Cook， who wears big glasses and admits to being “a bit nerdish[（俚）書呆子的].”

She added: “The pictures always stink[很糟糕的] and the books never really tell you anything about the

person. So we thought: why not put it online? Why not have a profile page that can list your TV interests， the music you like， your extracurriculars[課外活動]?”

Neither Cook nor her brother knew anything about building a website， but family help was at

hand[在手邊，即將到來]. Catherine and Dave have an older brother， Geoff， who had already made an Internet

fortune of his own while studying at Harvard University.

Geoff had devised[設計] and sold a pair of websites that helped students with essay writing and preparing CVs注2. He immediately saw the promise[有成功的希望] in his younger siblings’ [兄弟，姐妹] idea. He wrote them a check to get the website off the ground[（事業）順利開始]， and has since become the venture’s[風險事業] chief executive[執行官].

“Geoff is 11 years older than me，” said Cook. “He was running his websites out of Palm Springs， California，

and my mom used to send us out there to stay with him. His office was just so cool， and I knew when I saw it that I didn’t want a proper， typical job. I wanted to be an

entrepreneur[企業家].”

At 15， when most of her schoolmates were shopping at the mall and worrying about boys， Cook was firing off[發出一連串提問] e-mails to a team of website designers in Mumbai.

“It was very helpful to have a close personal

relationship with someone like Geoff，” she said.

“He knows how to hire programmers in India，

lease[租出，租得] server[服務器] space in Texas and start

conversations with venture capitalists in Silicon Valley注3.”

By April 2005 the family was ready to test its new toy. She and Dave turned up at school wearing T-shirts with slogans that read: “Are you the prettiest girl in school? How about the dumbest? Find out at myYearbook.com.”

As teenagers around the country flocked[聚結] to the site， they were followed by investors and advertisers. The site now employs 70 people， and Cook and her brothers may eventually be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Facebook， for example， which is privately

controlled， is estimated[估價] to be worth between $3

billion and $15 billion.

Cook is about to start her second year as a

student at Georgetown University in Washington DC， but she acknowledged[承認] that she was finding it hard to combine her studies with running a budding[開始發展的] website.

“I do want to graduate，” she said. “But I may have to take one or two years off to work on the website first.”

15歲的凱瑟琳·庫克來到新高中后不久，有一次，她和16歲的哥哥戴夫在翻看一本舊的學校畢業年刊時，看見一個他們都認識的女孩的名字，然而年刊上的照片卻一點也不像她。就在那一刻，一個互聯網帝國誕生了。

你也許聽過Google、MySpace和Facebook，以及那些通過非同凡響的電腦點子賺到億萬財富的天才少男。那么，現在來見識一位天才少女吧—這位來自（美國）新澤西州的少女將高中時代的靈光一現轉變成現在美國增長速度最快的在線社交網絡。

她和哥哥在新澤西州斯其爾曼市的蒙哥馬利高中創始了這個網站，如今網站已經發展成一門價值數百萬美元的網絡生意?！癿yYearbook.com”擁有1000萬名注冊會員，每月頁訪問量達到15億。