As expected, "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick is the most interesting book we have been assigned to read this semester. Because I did not see the movie, "The Social Network" I believe reading this book made it more entertaining to read than for others.
The first half of the making and early developments of Facebook can be summarized as chaotic, brilliant and promising. Beginning with an introduction to Mark Zuckerberg, the main founder of theFacebook, just reading his small biography reflected how smart this kid was and what potential he had as an entrepreneur. His introverted, shy personality, racking up honors in all aspects of his academic education has built him to one of the few youngest billionaires in the world. It was amazing to read how small they began with a tight budget to afford servers and a small operating space of the Harvard dorm room that typically was like every other college dorm room--filled with bottles on desks, clothes on the floor and un-made beds. Believe it or not, theFacebook domain name started at the cost of $35 at register.com that barely had a business plan as Zuckerberg and his colleagues (that do not receive enough credit) were working on other projects that they thought would be more successful than theFacebook. Astonishingly, theFacebook was limited to only Ivy League schools and with the help of Saverin, Moskovitz and Hughes, theFacebook was able to grow exponentially as these intelligent young men took their entrepreneurship to new levels.
I asked myself all along as I was reading the first half, what would be the social networking world be like if Zuckerberg and his colleagues did not focus on theFacebook and focused on the other programs they were developing? Zuckerberg was a man with so many ideas, wanting to create so many programs and then have people run that it almost came real that he could of just abandoned theFacebook. Programs like Coursematch, Facemash, Synapse, Six degrees, Wirehog all developed by Zuckerberg could of influenced him in abandoning Facebook. Moreover, what if Friendster executed the right way, or maybe the Harvard Connection, ConnectU, all developed by others became more popular than Facebook? I certainly believe that the social networking world would not be very much the same.
However, the development of Facebook was not a walk in the park. Not only did the Facebook crew come across money/budget issues, but they were actively dealing with the law, privacy rights, and even the conspiracy of taking theFacebook idea from other students at Harvard. When first starting up the site, Zuckerberg had find different ways to run it because it was invading the servers of the Harvard network as it grew larger and larger. Further, they had Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss and Divya Narendra bring Zuckerberg to court stating that he stole the idea of Facebook from them, which potentially could of made Facebook a complete disaster. Though, decisions like taking the business to Palo Alto at the summer house, introducing advertising through Y2M's agency, abandoning Wirehog and taking in few investments for Facebook allowed these entrepreneurs to become successful and the dominant power in social networking. Because theFacebook is purely not a dating site, mainly to keep track of schoolmates and has useful privacy settings, it separates itself from Myspace (which is on the downfall) and Friendster (which is a complete failure). Without theFacebook crew and the chaotic journey towards success, they sit at the top, owning the most popular social networking site in America. High schoolers, college students, and now even and older population are on Facebook to connect, but most importantly, putting older technologies obsolete like e-mailing.
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