Zuckerberg Plays Host in New Facebook IPO Video by Adario Strange, PCMAG.com

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apparently come a long way since his infamous sweat-drenched meltdown on stage at a tech conference years ago. So much so that he now serves as the company’s staple in a new video that Facebook posted in the run-up to its initial public offering (IPO).

The video is part of Facebook’s IPO road show, a traditional pre-IPO presentation a company offers potential investors to tell the company’s story and explain why it is a good investment. The 30-minute video starts out with Facebook CFO David Ebersman, who then introduces our host, Zuckerberg, who in turn passes the video baton to other company leaders such as Chris Cox, vice president of product, and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Sitting in the company’s Silicon Valley offices and speaking over the kind of optimistic, folksy music score we’ve become accustomed to in Apple and Google product videos, Zuckerberg describes the beginning of Facebook, from the early idea of photo uploads to the more recent Timeline feature.

“When I was in middle school I was using search engines like Google and Yahoo, I thought that they were the most amazing thing… The thing that seemed like it was missing was people,” Zuckerberg says. “Those companies are ancient, we are shiny and new, we have all the engaged users, and we are the future.”

Zuckerberg insists that “Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected.” But not everyone agrees. Just this week, former AOL COO and current Clear Channel CEO, Bob Pittman, made tech news headlines when he said, “Facebook is the next walled garden. It’s the second walled garden after AOL. They are really smart, and they are not letting anybody convince them to get rid of the walled garden.”

The video presentation also features cameos by the likes of Ben & Jerry’s CEO Jostein Solheim, chief marketing officer at American Express, John Hayes, and vice president of consumer planning for Diageo (the beverage company behind brands like Guinness, Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, and Baileys), Dawn Henry, all of whom extol the virtues of integrating Facebook into the company’s branding strategy.

Facebook said Thursday that it set the price for its public offering at between $28 and $35 per share, which will raise up to $13.6 billion for the company’s coffers.

For more, see What Does a Facebook IPO Mean for Users?

More on Price… http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/story/2012-05-03/facebook-ipo-pricing/54737512/1