Facebook considered blue hedgehog as brand mascot
Facebook, at one stage, considered using a blue hedgehog as its brand mascot.
According to The Los Angeles Times, former president and founder of music download site Napster, Sean Parker, decided to pitch for the idea of the brand creating an animal mascot, opting for a blue hedgehog, not dissimilar to Sega’s mascot, Sonic.
Former Facebook employee, Ezra Callahan described the decision on Quora recently after being posed a question by another user on the website.
Said Callahan: “True story: in the very early days of Facebook, Sean Parker wanted to make Facebook's mascot a hedgehog. We had early plans to build a local business program around each college on the site (a Yelp-like service similar to what later became Facebook Pages). As part of that, Sean wanted us to send each participating business a little blue stuffed hedgehog. Matt Cohler and I even sourced a couple companies to make them.”
She continued: “Sean actually wanted us to get a real hedgehog for the office. Turns out they aren't street legal in California, or something, but I guess he found a way to obtain one in Nevada. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your affinity for hedgehogs) Sean couldn't convince any of us to drive there to get one.
“The local business program was shelved mid 2005 (we decided a revenue product wasn't as important after the Accel financing), and Sean let his dream of the hedgehog go with it.”
She concluded: “If I'm not mistaken, a couple employees who live near the facebook campus own a hedgehog today. I won't name them in case they are, in fact, illegal, but I guess that sorta counts.”
A missed opportunity for the Facebook brand perhaps?