Blog Entry #10

Facebook Part 2

For this blog I will examine the second section of David Kirkpatricks book The Facebook Effect, pages 107-214. This part of the book interested me as it basically described The facebook and its features in the beginning of its development. Kirkpatrick talks more about the group of Harvard University students who started the page as well as, how they were being viewed by outside critics, and how they strategically developed the page in a manner that was sure to be successful. Throughout this section, Kirkpatrick also goes into more detail about the financial offers that Zuckerberg and his group were receiving from companies interested in buying their product.

During this part of the book I found myself flashing back a little to when I first heard of Facebook. It was appealing to read how Kirkpatrick incorporated the development of Thefacebook and how it reminded me of the minimal amount of features it had as well as the constraints that were placed upon it. After reading this book, and realizing that Zuckerberg is the mastermind behind all of this, I understand how and why the page became the extremely popular social network that it is today. I first heard of Facebook in high school after was visiting various colleges and talking to some of the students. One feature, which Kirkpatrick talks about, that reminds me of this time, is the excluding of certain people from Facebook. When I was high school, the only way to become a member of Facebook was to be invited by a college student. This not only was strategic by Zuckerberg in order to completely control his page, but it also made the page very appealing to a large number of people. I felt that the features and developments that David Kirkpatrick talks about in this part of the book are very interesting to read in order to truly understand how Mark Zuckerberg and his group made the page so successful.

This section of the book also touches on the financial support that Thefacebook had and gives us a better understanding of how the college students kept the page running. Within the first year, Zuckerberg had already been offered large sums of money by companies in hopes to take over his idea including a $75 million offer from Viacom. Internet websites similar to this particular page gain most of their financial revenue through advertisements and other sources of media. Kirkpatrick points out that, Mark was kind of against ads, as far as [they] could tell, (pg 16). As Zuckerberg had an idea in the back of his head of how his website would run and how it would be supported, the group began to find other companies to invest in order to support their invention.

I found this part of the book to be very interesting as it touched on two different important elements of The Facebook. David Kirkpatrick went into greater detail not only on the financial support of how the page continued to be supported, but also the various features and components that contributed to its development. He gave us a better understanding for why the page had to start slow, with some constraints and boundaries, and gradually expand to having almost every feature you could ask for. He proves Mark Zuckerbergs intelligence as he describes the different strategies he used in order to keep control of his company. I enjoyed reading The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, as it gave me more appreciation and a better understanding of the development and success of the social network I use so often.