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Mayor Bloomberg Talks To Facebook About City Site

By DNAinfo Staff on February 2, 2011 1:48pm

Mayor Bloomberg has spoken to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about creating a New York City site.
Mayor Bloomberg has spoken to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about creating a New York City site.
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Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

CITY HALL — Could FacebookNYC be on the way?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in talks with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about the possibility of creating a New York City Facebook site.

The mayor said he and Zuckerberg had recently met to discuss how the city could use the blockbuster social networking site to help residents share information and ideas, as part of a larger effort to harness the power of crowd sourcing.

"There’s a lot of potential there," Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference at City Hall, discussing new measures to crack down on mortgage fraud.

Bloomberg said he was "optimistic" that Zuckerberg would agree to work with the city to provide the data that was needed to make the project happen.

"We need some access to have a Facebook page for the city and I think we’ll work with them and find some ways to do it," he said.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The mayor, who carries an iPad almost everywhere he goes and recently visited Facebook’s headquarters in California, has not always been a fan of Facebook.

"The thing that surprises me is why people want to tell others what they're doing day in and day out. ... And you wonder, number one, what on earth? Why does anybody care?," he reportedly mused when asked about sites like Facebook and Twitter on his weekly radio interview in the past.

But Bloomberg said the city was eager to jump on the latest technological bandwagon.

"This is where we’re going. And we just want to sure that we lead it rather than miss the opportunity to get some benefit," he said.

The city recently appointed its first Chief Digital Officer, Rachel Sterne, 27, to help the city with its efforts.

The mayor's Facebook page currently has nearly 30,000 fans.