Thefacebook -> $ ->facebook -> $$$

The book that I have been looking forward to read the most is The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick and after reading the first few chapters along with the prologue, it definitely seems that the best book was indeed saved for last. I was expecting the prologue to present some glossy background information on how much success and revenue the facebook company has gained thus far but what I found was quite the opposite. Oscar Morales's story of creating the facebook group "Un Million de voces Contra Las FARC" that eventually lead to a global march against FARC (the REvolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) who's guerrillas were kidnapping innocent people was a touching introduction. This example of how networking can unite people for a cause leads to the questions on facebook's effects on the real-world that Kirkpatrick poses in his book.

Having payed ten dollars and fifty cents to watch The Social Network, the first chapter presented some familiar information on how facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and all the legal battles resulting from it. The in-depth information that was lacking in the film is fortunately present in this book. According to the book, the collaborative efforts of Zuckerberg and his roommates to create new computer programming projects was a routine activity for the boys and this "...wasn't too noteworthy at Harvard."(pg 22) where "Down every hall were gifted and privileged children of the powerful."( pg 22). However, to Zuckerberg,    "Making Thefacebook fun was more important than making it a business."( pg 33). The idea of facebook being a social networking site was not revolutionary because websites like Myspace and Friendster were already created but what lead  to the popularity  of Zuckerberg's site Thefacebook was the exclusivity of it. When first created, Thefacebook, later renamed facebook, was only for Harvard students and later Ivy League schools. Kirkpatrick describes the importance of social ranking in Harvard with the popularity of Zuckerberg's early Internet software called Course Match which allowed students to decide which classes they take based on which students were already registered in them. Aside from the usual flirting and networking that most social networks were already used for, Thefacebook introduced a new medium for "creating study groups for classes, arranging meetings for clubs, and posting notices about parties.

With popularity and traffic growing, Thefacebook easily gained partnership with Y2M which placed ads on Thefacebook. This advertising income helped Zuckerberg and his colleagues buy new equipment and servers to support Thefacebook's growth. Through it's popularity, Facebook has become the world's largest social network. This is not to say that Mark Zuckerberg was a genius for creating Facebook. The pattern of copying and competing in the computer industry introduced earlier in the book Computers by Eric Swedin and David Ferro is essentially what Zuckerberg has done. Although it can be argued that codes and forums from other social networking sites were not used by Zuckerberg, the idea of facebook is influenced by websites like Friendster, ConnectU, and  houseSYSTEM . Aaron Greenspan,who claims that he "invented The Facebook"( pg 84), experienced the consequence of neglecting to patent his ideas the way Edward Roberts, the founder of MITS, did not patent his idea of the microcomputer as discussed by Swedin and Ferro (Computers 89).

The success that Mark Zuckerberg and facebook has gained is indisputable. Giles Slade mentions in his book Made to Break :"We are going to have to live and be comfortable and maneuver in a computer environment" (pg 224). The wide usage of  facebook proves that a large part of today's society already live that comfortable computer environment.