Reviews of the Facebook Effect in Major Media Since Early June

8/8/2019 Reviews of the Facebook Effect in Major Media Since Early June

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Reviews of book

Forbes.com:(http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/25/social-media-facebook-internet-opinions-book-reviews-george-anders.html) Book ReviewSocial Media FrenzyGeorge Anders, 05.25.10, 4:00 PM ETIn Aldous Huxley's futuristic classic of the 1930s,Brave New World, people constantly glide into a dreamy,cheery state caused by a drug called soma, which provides "all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol;none of their defects."It turns out we don't need soma after all. We've got Facebook.Started in a Harvard dorm just six years ago, Facebook has grown into what's probably the most appealing,addictive website on the planet. Nearly 500 million people now are counted among the ranks of Facebook'sactive users, including at least 100 more that are joining as you read this sentence. Many visitors linger onthe site for hours each day, peeking at one another's photos, swapping playful comments and turning oddgames like Farmville into global crazes.What's going on? A few years ago Facebook might have seemed like a campus fad that hardly merited a

serious book. But in 2006 veteran journalist David Kirkpatrick sensed something bigger was afoot. Nowhe's in print with The Facebook Effect, a carefully reported book that should change the way you thinkabout a very unusual enterprise.Because Facebook is based in Silicon Valley and has venture capital investors, it usually is treated as a

business. But it doesn't act like one: it keeps growing its user base insanely fast while its moneymakingabilities remain defiantly mediocre. Most of the business press fumes about this discordance withoutknowing what else to say.Give Kirkpatrick credit for seeing Facebook through fresh eyes. He portrays it as "a new pathway forsharing": in essence a social cause--maybe even a novel way of life--that's all about maximizing its owninfluence, not its revenue. Kirkpatrick's language can seem sycophantic when he talks about "bringing theworld together" or helping ideas "rush through groups." No matter; Kirkpatrick's basic premise is powerful.Facebook should be grouped in with Christianity, alcohol and soma. Its mission owes much more to RickWarren than to Warren Buffett.

By seeing Facebook as a cause, Kirkpatrick is able to march through its six-year history much more crisplythan previous narrators. He opens the book by showing how excited Facebook's founders where when aColombian activist, Oscar Morales, used the site in 2008 to stir up peaceful protests by millions of peopleworldwide. He astutely focuses on Facebook's creation of easy photo-sharing as a trigger for the company'sgreatest growth surge. And he explains why Facebook has been so eager to expand into emerging marketssuch as Turkey, Chile or the Philippines, even if it's hard to earn much selling ads there.Kirkpatrick also does the best job yet of making sense of Facebook's founder, 26-year-old MarkZuckerberg. It's ironic--yet superbly fitting--that Zuckerberg's ability to create a vast online social networkcontrasts with his frequent stumbles at real-world friendship. In the course of the book, we see Zuckerberg

parting ways with most of his founding team, churning through a series of No. 2 executives and gettingtangled in lawsuits with other Harvard students over who played what role in starting the enterprise.An earlier book about Facebook, The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, portrayed the company'sformation chiefly as a story of hedonism and greed. Kirkpatrick isn't buying that, and you shouldn't either. Igot to peek inside Facebook for a couple months in 2008 doing some part-time consulting, and it was clear

that in spite of the free food and RipStiks, the engineering culture was about as demanding and driven asI've ever seen. In fact, Kirkpatrick portrays Zuckerberg as a prophetlike figure peering into the future,making grand pronouncements and being the only person in the room who is completely unsurprised whenthey all come true.

Meanwhile, the middle chapters of the book are packed with vivid stories of Zuckerberg's coming of age. Ahigh-school fencer, Zuckerberg conducted one business meeting while repeatedly poking a foil at acolleague. Later the Facebook founder accepted a dare to pitch venture capitalists in his pajamas. In another


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scene Zuckerberg retreated to the bathroom during stressful business negotiations to burst into tears, unsurewhat to do.Is Zuckerberg a genius? A flake? A bit of both? The book explains how his many facets fit together.Facebook these days is in the midst of a public firestorm over its attitudes toward user privacy. Zuckerberg,as we learn in the book, has long believed that online sharing is wave of the future, with old-fashionedguardedness yielding to a new era of "greater transparency." Maybe. But being on display isn't always fun,as seen by employees who lose jobs after private mischief on Facebook becomes public knowledge. There'san underlying tension between confidentiality and openness that Facebook hasn't yet figured out how toresolve.

Brave New Worldended darkly, with an outsider's failed attack on soma-based society. Kirkpatrick isn'tpredicting anything quite so bleak, but his final chapter is surprisingly blunt about ways that Facebookcould falter. Sheer size can unnerve the authorities; so can concentration of power."The closer that Facebook gets to achieving its vision," Kirkpatrick writes, "the more likely it is to attractgovernment attention."George Anders is working on a book about picking talent in America.

---------(http://www.economist.com/node/16271065)

Facebook

Village peopleJun 3rd 2010From The Economist print edition

How to avoid trouble

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World. By DavidKirkpatrick. Simon & Schuster; 372 pages; $26. To be published in Britain by Virgin in July; 11.99. Buy from

Amazon.comMARSHALL MCLUHAN is very popular at Facebook, according to David Kirkpatricks new book on the social-networking giant. That is hardly surprising. In the 1960s McLuhan argued that the rise of electroniccommunications would inevitably shrink the world to create what he called a global village whose members

would have a heightened sense of their collective identity. Facebook, which may soon boast 500m active users inits online-networking service, seems bent on turning McLuhans vision into a reality.

That the social network has come so far so fast in six years is testimony to the drive of another visionary:MarkZuckerberg, its youthful founder and chief executive. Mr Kirkpatrick provides some intriguing insights into thepsyche ofMr Zuckerberg and his journey from a dorm room at Harvard University, where he created theforerunner to Facebook, to the boardroom of what is now one of the best-known technology companies in the

world. His research helps explain Facebooks success, but it also hints at why the firm has repeatedly found itselfmired in controversy.In the early days Mr Zuckerberg comes across as a mixture of programming prodigy and business neophyte (hisinitial business cards bear the memorable phrase Im CEObitch!). But his leadership instincts arecommendably sharp. By surrounding himself with experienced advisers, he manages to steer Facebook clear of

hurdles that threaten to derail its growth and soon finds himself the object of fawning attention from companiesand venture capitalists drooling over the firms fast-growing franchise. The pressure on the fledgling entrepreneuris intense. In one scene Mr Zuckerberg retreats to the bathroom of a swank Silicon Valley restaurant and bursts

into tears during a stressful negotiation over funding.But behind the tears is toughness. Facebooks boss turns down several Croesus-like offers to buy the company in

spite of intense lobbying by fellow shareholders who think he should sell. And he pursues his vision of making the

world a more open and connected place with single-minded determination. Some of the most interestingpassages in The Facebook Effect describe how Mr Zuckerbergs missionary zeal makes him ambivalent towards

initiatives that would mint money for Facebook but fail to advance its agenda of radical transparency.It is this zealand the companys habit of suddenly revealing more of a users information in unexpected ways

that has repeatedly got it into hot water. Here Mr Kirkpatrick puts his finger on the contradiction between MrZuckerbergs professed belief in the importance of protecting peoples privacy and his deep-seated conviction that

people are rapidly losing interest in keeping their personal data hidden.Resolving this tension will not be easy. If Facebook is too conservative, it risks being usurped by fast-growingupstarts. If it pushes its agenda of openness too hard, it could alienate users. Mr Kirkpatrick believes thatFacebooks leaders are smart enough to come up with strategies that wil l keep the company growing like crazy.

When Im in their offices I often feel this could be the smartest bunch ofyoung people on the planet today, he

gushes.


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Perhaps they are, but some of the teams ill-considered actions have raised the hackles of privacy watchdogs andpolicymakers. A groundswell of protest recently took the company by surprise and forced it to roll back changesthat automatically made more data publicly available. If Facebook is to prosper it needs to accept that even in an

emerging global village, many people will not want to l ive in houses that are made entirely of glass.

------------------CNET(http://news.cnet.com/the-social/?keyword=The+Facebook+Effect)

http://news.cnet.com/the-social/June 2, 2010 12:00 PM PDT

Review: The good, the bad, the ugly of

Zuckerbergby Caroline McCarthyLet it be known that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted a book to be written about the company hefounded. At the top of the acknowledgments for journalist David Kirkpatrick's new book about Facebook,"The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World," Kirkpatrick makesit clear. "Had (Zuckerberg) not encouraged me to write this book and cooperated as I did so, it would likelynot have happened.""The Facebook Effect," which will be available for purchase Tuesday, is the most extensive work writtenabout the ubiquitous social-networking site and the people who lifted it from late-night college project toSilicon Valley powerhouse. It commences with a single story of Facebook's sheer brawn: the Facebook-

based organization of Colombian activists against paramilitary guerillas that culminated in protests

attended by hundreds of thousands. Then the book plunges into Facebook's flip-flops-and-Red-Bull days asa start-up headquartered out of a Harvard University dorm. By the end, it's setting up Facebook as,rightfully so, the most formidable rival to Web giant Google.The cover of the 300-plus-page hardcover tome is the silhouette of a face made of mirror-like, reflective

paper. Pick the book up, and you'll see your own face, set against a background of the same soft blue colorthat Facebook uses on its own site. You can, already, judge a bit from the cover of this book: This is theFacebook that Facebook wants you to see--both the glamorous and the ugly sides of one of the mostsuccessful, fastest-growing companies in recent memory.The reporting by Kirkpatrick, a longtime Fortune magazine technology editor, is meticulous andexhaustive. The reader learns precisely what percentage of equity Facebook's biggest shareholders have,exactly which major technology and media companies have courted Facebook over the years for bothinvestment deals and potential acquisitions, and the story behind Facebook's random inclusion of the"Wedding Crashers" quotation "I don't even know what a quail looks like" below its search box in the

social network's early days.In the process, Kirkpatrick interviewed a first-rate who's who of Facebook insiders, from Mark Zuckerberghimself to executives like Sheryl Sandberg and Chris Kelly, co-founders Dustin Moskowitz and ChrisHughes, and investors Peter Thiel and Jim Breyer. It's an unprecedented level of depth and perspective intothe company. And it has Facebook's seal of approval."The Facebook Effect" can be considered, then, the counterpoint to last year's "The AccidentalBillionaires," author Ben Mezrich's unauthorized, hormone-fueled panty-raid of a Facebook creation tale.With no cooperation from Facebook (in fact, outright antagonism), Mezrich penned "Billionaires" largelyfrom the perspective of spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin; the founders of would-be rival site ConnectU,who had a longstanding lawsuit against Zuckerberg and Facebook; and former Facebook executive Sean

Copyright 2010 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.


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Parker, who resigned in the wake of boardroom friction and a drug-related arrest. (Saverin is the only onewhom Mezrich has explicitly confirmed that he worked with as a source.) In "Billionaires," Zuckerberg is

painted as calculating and ethically challenged, ruthlessly severing ties to people who threaten hisauthority. And it's Mezrich's, not Kirkpatrick's take on Facebook that forms the basis for " The Social

Network," the David Fincher-helmed film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake as Zuckerbergand Parker, scheduled fora release in October.A number of Facebook's critics and rivals, each with their own agenda, indeed appear to have been cut outentirely from the development of "The Facebook Effect." Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, two of the threeco-founders of ConnectU, say that they were never contacted for comment or an interview. Neither wasAaron Greenspan, a Harvard computer science student who built a social-networking project around thesame time that Zuckerberg did and who laterclaimed ownership of the concept behind Facebook.The differences between the treatment of Facebook's early scandals in Mezrich's book--which Facebookhas openly discredited--and Kirkpatrick's are stark. In "The Facebook Effect," co-founder Saverin was "ineffect, demanding to be CEO of Thefacebook without even making a full-time commitment" and that his"business skills didn't impress his colleagues." While Kirkpatrick characterizes Zuckerberg's treatment ofthe ConnectU situation as "rude" and that "he certainly should have alerted (the ConnectUfounders)...earlier about what to expect," he implies that ConnectU was significantly different fromZuckerberg's initial conception of Facebook. And Sean Parker, whom Mezrich implies in "The AccidentalBillionaires" may have been surreptitiously forced out of the company, is acknowledged in "The FacebookEffect" to have been a lightning rod and a liability, but also a crucial early player in the company's success

whom Zuckerberg "continues to this day periodically to consult" on business matters.There's also no comment in "The Facebook Effect" from the founders of Twitter, which Facebookattempted to acquire in a $500 million stock deal that Twitter subsequently turned down and whichcertainly influenced a handful of Facebook product development decisions in late 2008 and early 2009(both of which Kirkpatrick details in the book). "I'm not sure if David had any questions for us regardingthis project or if he was interested in talking to anyone here at Twitter," co-founder Biz Stone told CNET inan e-mail. "I've not personally spoken with him."To an extent this is commentary on Kirkpatrick's part on what really matters to Facebook's history:Interpret it as his way of saying that Twitter's alleged rivalry to Facebook, as well as the ConnectUkerfuffle, were drops in the bucket compared to the ways in which the company is affecting internationalaffairs, global communications, and the public's interaction with the digital world. But it would have beenuseful and added a bit of color to hear from Facebook's critics and rivals, particularly if the intent of this

book is to be a complete account of the company's early days. Representatives of Facebook were available

for comment."The book was authorized but not approved," Kirkpatrick told CNET in an e-mail on Thursday, assuringthat there was no pressure on him to suppress anything that spoke nastily of Facebook. "Facebook did notsee my drafts nor did I request their permission for anything." Kirkpatrick said that he had a brief voice-mail exchange with Divya Narendra, who co-founded ConnectU with the Winklevoss brothers, and that hetried extensively to get in touch with Eduardo Saverin but that Saverin's lawsuit settlement conditionsforbade him from speaking to the author.That's not to say that "The Facebook Effect" whitewashes Zuckerberg's rebellious streak. He's still,

proudly, the captain of a pirate ship (a phrase that Kirkpatrick uses). He still hacked into Harvard servers tolaunch his controversial "Facemash" project in college, carried business cards that read "I'm CEO...bitch,"oversaw the company's operations out of a Palo Alto, Calif., "frat house" that his employees subsequentlytrashed over the course of a summer, and gave the middle finger to investment firm Sequoia Capital byshowing up for a meeting in pajamas and giving a mock presentation. ("It's not a story I'm very proud of,"

Zuckerberg told Kirkpatrick regarding the Sequoia incident.)This is Zuckerberg the adventitiously crowned boy-king of the social Web, both cocky and naive, prone topensive episodes of teeming thought as well as verbal matches armed with a fencing foil. This is the DigitalAge's version of a globe-conquering young renegade, an Alexander the Great in Adidas sandals--but still anultimately benevolent visionary, Kirkpatrick asserts, writing about Facebook's disastrous handling of itsBeacon advertising program in 2007 and saying that it's a "fundamental misreading" of Zuckerberg toattribute the "poorly designed alert service" to insidious intentions on Facebook's part.But whatever side Kirkpatrick takes, at its core "The Facebook Effect" is an insight not only into Facebookitself but into the complicated process behind the growing pains of a company whose roots were as


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amateurish as they get. This is a story about how deals were made, how executives were hired, how internaldisputes ebb and flow. It's fascinating. It's well-written and masterfully reported.Still, one is left wondering if anything more sordid was missed.Disclosure: Simon & Schuster, publisher of "The Facebook Effect," is a division of CBS Corp., which alsopublishes CNET.This post was updated at 12:32 p.m. PT on Thursday with comment from David Kirkpatrick.

-------------USA Today:(http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/06/new-facebook-book-hits-shelves-the-internet-today/1)

New Facebook book hits shelves, the Internet, today

The Internet's most pervasive service, Facebook, has a storybook feel to it.Six years after its humble beginnings as Thefacebook.com at Harvard University, the social-networking

behemoth is a hourly presence in the lives of its 500 million members. It has fomented a fundamental shiftin the way people communicate, share personal information and view their digital privacy. (The company

and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, are also the subject of a major Hollywood movie, The Social Network,due in October.)Along the way, Zuckerberg has turned down acquisition offers of as much as $15 billion; worked with andagainst technology giants Google, Microsoft and Viacom; and knocked heads with privacy advocates.Those are some of the gems in the illuminating new book, The Facebook Effect(Simon & Schuster, $26),

by former Fortune columnist David Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was granted unprecedented access toZuckerberg and key Facebook staff to tell the yarn of how a 19-year-old Harvard student, Zuckerberg,slavishly focused on growth over profits with an unrelenting desire to make Facebook a dominant Internetcompany -- as well become a ubiquitous presence in communication, marketing, business and people'sidentities."The reality is that nothing on Facebook is really confidential," Kirkpatrick writes. "Facebook is foundedon a radical social premise -- that an inevitable enveloping transparency will overtake modern life."-- By Jon Swartz

USA TODAY ONLINE

-----------

Christian Science Monitor:(http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2010/0607/The-Facebook-Effect)

The Facebook Effect

_Facebook may know more about you than yourgovernment does

The Facebook Effect By David Kirkpatrick Simon & Schuster 320 pp., $26 By Jackson Holahan / June 7, 2010Most adolescent boys spend their high school years worrying about acne and girls. Not Mark Zuckerberg.While at Phillips Exeter Academy, he and a friend developed Synapse, a software program that assessedusers listening habits and suggested other songs they may like. Synapse received purchase offers of close


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to $1 million from Microsoft and other tech companies. These same firms also lobbied Zuckerberg to forgocollege and immediately come to work for them.Zuckerberg declined all offers to skip college and to sell Synapse and instead enrolled at Harvard. TheDobbs Ferry, N.Y., native did not seem to be motivated by money. He harbored grander ambitions. By thespring of 2004, his sophomore year, the then 19-year-old had launched Facebook.com. David Kirkpatrick,senior technology editor at Fortune magazine, captures this moment and the subsequent ascension ofFacebook in The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World .The genius of Facebook is that Zuckerberg has repeatedly shunned profit and increasingly larger buyoutoffers in favor of designing a service that delivers more utility to its users. Its user base of over half a

billion increasing at a rate of approximately 25 million a month indicates that the Facebook team hasachieved high levels of practical utility. For many people Facebook has, as Kirkpatrick correctly notes,replaced Rolodexes, cellphones, and even e-mail.Kirkpatrick is an experienced and perceptive observer of technological entrepreneurship. In sharp prose hedeftly explains the social capital that Facebook provides its users. The site has generated a remarkable massappeal that spans countries, generations, and cultures. As an Internet platform, Facebook has made it veryeasy to stay in touch with friends, family, co-workers, and long-lost acquaintances. David Schlesinger,editor in chief of Thomson Reuters, said, I think the Facebook News Feed is real news. It tells me newsIm interested in.Despite Zuckerbergs stated desire to ensure that Facebook remains a service-first, profit-second enterprise,significant obstacles remain. With more than 500 million users volunteering various degrees of very

personal information their age, gender, hometown, occupation, favorite movies, hobbies, etc. Facebookis the advertising industrys holy grail. Facebook has the means to host ads for very specific targetingdemographics.One of Facebooks greatest challenges in the years ahead will be to continue growth and appropriatelymonetize its efforts without compromising the personal information of its users. Although users freely offertheir personal information on the site, perceived breaches of confidentiality have aroused considerableuproar. The specter of government intervention antitrust, solicitation of private information, and so on also remains a very real possibility. Kirkpatrick even opines that Facebook may soon house more dataabout citizens than do their own governments.Zuckerberg is somewhat of a philosopher-software king. When asked, Why dont you sell the company?he has said, I dont really need the money. And anyway, I dont think Im ever going to have an idea thisgood again. Kirkpatricks unmitigated access to the technology industrys corporate titans, Facebookshighest-ranking executives among them, paints Zuckerberg as both a genius and a visionary. Zuckerberg

genuinely aims to create the most applicable and practical Web tool in the world. He views Facebook as avessel for good and provides this vision to his employees in order to maximize consumer utility.Zuckerbergs repeated testimonials deferring to the needs of the user should not be overblown, however.The fiercely competitive Zuckerberg may well hope to become more relevant, more powerful, and evenwealthier than his Palo Alto rivals, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Given the way thingshave gone for him in the past six years, its not at all far fetched to imagine that it will all come true.

Jackson Holahan is a freelance writer in Columbus, Ga.

----------------NY Times(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/books/08book.html)June 7, 2010

Company on the Verge of a SocialBreakthroughByMICHIKO KAKUTANI

THE FACEBOOK EFFECTThe Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the WorldBy David KirkpatrickIllustrated. 372 pages. Simon & Schuster. $26.


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Responding to growing user concerns about privacy and growing scrutiny from American and Europeanregulators of privacy practices, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive ofFacebook.com, lastmonth tried to explain his companys core principles in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post.Facebook, he said, was built around a few simple ideas: that people want to share and stay connected withtheir friends and the people around them; that if people have control over what they share, they will wantto share more; and that if people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And aworld thats more open and connected is a better world.

Never mind all the people who doubt whether a more connected world necessarily translates into a better,more trusting world. There are plenty of Facebook users who simply question its commitment to lettingthem easily control their own information. While the company responded to the public uproar over recentchanges to its privacy policy (which made some profile details available to the public at large, and gavethird parties more access to user data) by promising to roll out new, simplified privacy settings, its default

position, as Time magazine recently noted, has long been to automatically set users preferences tomaximum exposure and then put the onus on them to dial back access.

Not only has the promotion of user sharing fueled the companys business, enabling data mining and highlydirected advertising, but its also been part of the companys almost utopian credo.Members of Facebooks radical transparency camp, Zuckerberg included, David Kirkpatrick writes inThe Facebook Effect, believe more visibility makes us better people. Some claim, for example, that

because of Facebook, young people today have a harder time cheating on their boyfriends or girlfriends.They also say that more transparency should make for a more tolerant society in which people eventually

accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things.Mr. Kirkpatrick who for many years was the senior editor for Internet and technology at Fortunemagazine was encouraged by Mr. Zuckerberg to write this book and was granted extensive access tohim and his associates. Their cooperation has resulted in a mostly sympathetic at times, gushinglylaudatory account of the company, though Mr. Kirkpatrick does not shy away from dissecting itsmissteps and successive disputes over privacy. He gives the reader a detailed understanding of how thecompany grew from a 2004 Harvard dorm-room project into the worlds second-most-visited site afterGoogle.Facebook is not only the worlds largest social network, but Mr. Kirkpatrick suggests that it may also bethe fastest-growing company of any type in history. He reports that over 20 percent of the 1.7 billion

people on the global Internet now use Facebook regularly, including 35.3 percent of the Americanpopulation. The number of users is growing at the remarkable rate of 5 percent a month , he says, and theaverage user, astonishingly enough, spends almost an hour there each day.

But while Mr. Kirkpatrick has some interesting observations on Facebooks evolution and future as itgrapples with competitors like Twitter, his examination of the companys social and political impact(helping people to self-organize) is pretty familiar, touching upon its use by Obama supporters in the 2008campaign and its use in Colombia to organize protests against the hostage-taking FARC guerillas. Hismeditations about Facebooks impact on advertising and the broader media landscape are similarlyglancing and predictable.The portrait of Mr. Zuckerberg, now 26, that emerges from this volume is that of a brilliant, sometimesnave, frequently prescient visionary, who has evolved over the years from an impulsive college studentfond of baggy jeans, rubber sandals (even in winter) and T-shirts, into a Silicon Valley executive (evenknown to don a dress shirt and tie), speaking around the world to promote his companys global ambitions.Hes the wunderkind who has repeatedly resisted the temptation to sell his company for vast amounts ofmoney in order to retain control, a chief executive with an almost missionary zeal when it comes to getting

people to share information.

In the course of recounting Facebooks story, Mr. Kirkpatrick provides a succinct history of the rise ofsocial networking, arguing that the company triumphed through a combination of luck, timing and itscreators determination that the service work smoothly on a technical level: after all, an early socialnetworking site called sixdegrees.com, which began in 1997, was hobbled by the slowness of dial-upmodems, and another precursor called Friendster was plagued by debilitating outages and slowdowns .Mr. Kirkpatrick also contends that Facebooks ultimate success owes a lot to the fact that it began atcollege, where peoples social networks are densest and where they generally socialize more vigorouslythan at any other time in their lives, and that its genesis at Harvard also lent it an elitist aura that made it astatus magnet for early users.


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Much of Facebooks history from a lawsuit brought by three Harvard students who claimed that theoriginal idea for the site belonged to them, to attempts by Viacom and Yahoo to acquire the company forhundreds of millions of dollars is well known by now. But Mr. Kirkpatrick still does an animated job ofevoking the collegiate atmosphere that reigned at the company, even after its move to Palo Alto, Calif.: theall-nighters, the dorm-like lifestyle, the Red Bull-fueled work sessions and the beer-fueled parties.At the same time, he reminds the reader of the smart and fortunate design choices like the sites clean,minimalist look, and the momentous 2005 decision to add photo hosting to the site that drove thecompanys astonishing growth around the world to the point where it is now closing in on 500 millionusers.So far, Mr. Kirkpatrick says, Mr. Zuckerberg has pursued growth over money, but asks what guaranteeFacebook users could get that the chief executives good intentions will last indefinitely. In a worst-case,Frankensteinian scenario, Mr. Kirkpatrick ominously adds, possibly in some future when Zuckerberg haslost control of his creation, Facebook itself could become a giant surveillance system, as the companywill always be able to see our data, no matter what protections it might offer our data from the potentialdepredations of others.

----------------------AP(Syndicated in the Detroit News:

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100607/BIZ04/6070405/1013/biz04)

'The Facebook Effect' shows site's origins, impactBy RACHEL METZ (AP) 4 hours ago"The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World" (Simon &Schuster, 372 pages, $26), by David Kirkpatrick: Many of us use Facebook nearly every day some of usmultiple times a day without giving much thought to how the world's most popular social network cameto be.As it turns out, the story is fascinating, and somewhat complicated. Fortunately, journalist DavidKirkpatrick is an able guide, taking readers on a mostly swift tour of the company that started as"TheFacebook" in founder Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room back in 2004 and has sincemushroomed into a global company connecting a community that now approaches 500 million users.

"The Facebook Effect" opens not with Zuckerberg but with the tale of Oscar Morales, a civil engineer fromBarranquilla, Colombia, who in 2008 formed a Facebook group protesting the Revolutionary Armed Forcesof Colombia. The Facebook activity quickly inspired massive, real-life protests against the leftist rebels theU.S. State Department calls a terrorist group. Though the story may sound a bit dramatic to the averageFacebook user, it helps Kirkpatrick make an important point even before delving into the main narrative: In

just a few years, Facebook has had a huge impact on people and institutions around the world,fundamentally changing how we communicate.From there, Kirkpatrick backtracks to Zuckerberg, circa September 2003, when the then-sophomoreinstalled an 8-foot whiteboard "the geek's consummate brainstorming tool," as Kirkpatrick puts it inthe hallway of his four-student suite.At the time, Zuckerberg was experimenting with several online projects: Course Match, a way to letstudents choose classes according to who was already signed up for them; and Facemash, which let peoplecompare two people and decide who was more attractive. The winner would then be compared toincreasingly more attractive people.These programs got some attention and criticism at Harvard, but it was in early 2004 that Zuckerbergreally lit a fire by launching TheFacebook. According to Kirkpatrick, Harvard had said it would buildsomething like that itself, by stitching together the different "facebooks" that houses at Harvard printedwith photos of their students. But since the school hadn't gotten around to it, Zuckerberg did it himself.As Kirkpatrick recounts, the website quickly spread throughout Harvard's student body, and thenZuckerberg and sometimes-forgotten co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverinfeverishly rolled it out at other schools. In 2006, it was expanded beyond universities and high schools tothe general population.


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Kirkpatrick's telling of the early days of Facebook is exciting, packed with details like an early offer for thesite ($10 million from an unknown financier four months after its launch) and a cringe-inducing descriptionof the broken glass in the pool and zip line above it at the first house Zuckerberg rented in Palo Alto, Calif.,in the summer of 2004.Kirkpatrick, a longtime reporter for Fortune magazine, isn't always the most spellbinding storyteller "The Facebook Effect" loses steam in the last 100 pages, and the immense number of interview subjectscan be overwhelming and confusing at times but his reporting skills are impressive.The book is packed with interviews from all the key players, including Zuckerberg and Moskovitz.Kirkpatrick's subjects open up about everything from Zuckerberg's personality quirks to Facebook'sdealings with investors including Microsoft Corp. and billionaire Li Ka-shing. You get the impression thatall, including Zuckerberg, are earnestly trying to be as transparent as the social network they've built.Zuckerberg, 26, is, of course, both the face of Facebook and of "The Facebook Effect." ThroughKirkpatrick's eyes, he comes across as sympathetic, incredibly smart and committed both to getting users toshare their lives openly on Facebook and protecting their privacy a contrast from the Zuckerberg thathas been portrayed recently in the media as being more cavalier about privacy.Kirkpatrick doesn't shy away from conflict, though, detailing Facebook users' often outraged reactions tochanges on the site, as well as a lawsuit (settled in 2008) in which three former classmates accusedZuckerberg of hijacking the idea for Facebook from another social site he was helping them build."The Facebook Effect" is about much more than Zuckerberg's and Facebook's growing pains, though: Itwants to show over and over again how the social network is rapidly changing the world, helping us be

more open but also presenting questions about how much we really want to share.Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.-------------------------Wall St. Journal:(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704002104575291330385856628.html)

y BOOKSHELFy JUNE 8, 2010

Status Update: MegasuccessfulFrom behind the corporate privacy walls, tales of hits and errors.By PAUL BOUTINFacebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, at age 26, claims that he hasn't sold his privatelyheld companyvaluations fluctuate in the $10 billion to $20 billion neighborhoodbecause, more thangetting ever richer, he wants to lead the world to become more connected through the sharing of personalinformation. In interviews and on his blog, Mr. Zuckerberg pushes a philosophy of beneficial socialinformation-sharing as fervently as Bill Gates once preached the power of the PC.Still, it's a surprise that Mr. Zuckerberg encouraged his employees to join him in peppering the company'sofficially sanctioned history with the sort of anecdotes that most CEOs would rather not share. Despite thecompany's heavy involvement, David Kirkpatrick's "The Facebook Effect" chronicles Mr. Zuckerberg'smissteps in addition to his genius.The story begins as Mr. Zuckerberg arrives at Harvard as an undergraduate in 2003. The kid mounts an 8-

foot whiteboard on a wall for charting his complicated ideas. Within a week he has developed a softwareprogram that lets students see who has signed up for which class. It's a social-network way of looking at theIvy League: What matters most is not a class's curriculum and syllabus but the links to everybody else inthe room.Then Mr. Zuckerberg moves on to something bigger: a girl-rating program that lonely guys (like him) canshare and revise. "Thefacebook"named for the student and faculty guide at Mr. Zuckerberg's prepschoolsoon morphs into a more generally shareable site for Harvard students. Then it grows to include allIvy Leaguers, and the boundaries quickly expand from there until Facebookofficially launched just sixyears agogirds the planet, with nearly 500 million users posting photos, personal profiles and messagesfor their virtual (and sometimes real-life!) friends.


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In Mr. Kirkpatrick's narrative, Mr. Zuckerberg comes across as a Gatesian underage overachiever. Like Mr.Gates, he is smarter and harder-working than most of his Harvard classmates. Like Mr. Gates, he becomesobsessed with a new way for everyone to use the computer. Like Mr. Gates, he is hard to work with.A former Fortune magazine technology writer, Mr. Kirkpatrick interviewed more than 100 people,including Mr. Gates, AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong and 39 Facebook employees. Mr. Zuckerberg,who did not cooperate with Ben Mezrich for last year's unflattering "The Accidental Billionaires," seems tohave been generous to Mr. Kirkpatrick with his time and honest about his mistakes.Yet some anecdotes make you wonder how Mr. Zuckerberg still has a job. There is the day in 2004 whenZuck and business partner Sean Parker, formerly known as one-half of Napster, scheduled an 8 a.m.meeting at Silicon Valley power-player Sequoia Capital, investors who were interested in Mr. Zuckerberg's

promising venture. It was a set-up by the two young entrepreneurs: Mr. Parker and Mr. Zuckerberg, feelingthat Sequoia had undermined Mr. Parker at another recent startup, were bent on revenge.

The pair rolled up Sand Hill Road extremely late to the meeting, dressed in T-shirts and pajamabottoms. Messrs. Zuckerberg and Parker then presented some of Silicon Valley's most powerful venturecapitalists with a slide show of sophomoric jokes that ridiculed Sequoia for trying to horn in on theircompany. "It's not a story I'm very proud of," Mr. Zuckerberg says in the book.Mr. Kirkpatrick doesn't coddle his subject, yet he presents Mr. Zuckerberg's point of view much morecomprehensibly than we have seen it before. Most Facebook followers already know that Mr. Zuckerbergaligned with, and then cut off, several early collaborators. The author lets you get inside Mr. Zuckerberg'shead and understand that he could almost taste Facebook's potential to be the next Google, but he didn't

think he had a team he could trust to make it happen.Mr. Kirkpatrick also makes it clear that Mr. Zuckerberg is hardly a full-time genius. He is scornful ofemployees usually older oneswho try to separate their work and play identities online. "Mark doesn't

believe that social and professional lives are distinct," says friend and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman."That's a classic college student view." Mr. Zuckerberg initially resisted creating a profitable advertisingsystem atop Facebook, certain that the ads would chase away members. The geezers who championed itwere right on that one. More recently the company has created at least a major public-relations headachefor itself with what has been decried by many change-sensitive Facebook users as a cavalier attitude towardtheir privacy settings.The best chapter in "The Facebook Effect" recounts Mr. Zuckerberg's most controversial decision. AsFacebook relocates to Silicon Valley and grows from 100,000 users to a hundred million, a parade ofgraying, well-dressed executives from Yahoo, Microsoft, News Corp., MTV and other companies visits theFacebook offices. The callers' goal: Buy Facebook. Install senior management.

As the bids climb well past $1 billion in 2006, and as pressure increases from Facebook investorsclamoring for a fast, rich exit, Mr. Zuckerbergwho controls three of the five board seats and thus can't beoverruledreluctantly comes to a realization: "I don't want to sell the company."Investors are enraged. Employees eager to cash in their stock feel cheated. (The company takes pity andarranges a pre-IPO sale for some employee shares.) Corporate suitors are insulted by this punk who daresto turn down their billion-dollar offers. Yet for Mr. Zuckerberg, the company's ascendancy is a chance tostep up as a leader. He spurned the offers, he explains at the time, because "we have so much moreopportunity to change the world than this."Mr. Zuckerberg can't imagine a life of leisure. He doesn't want to join the tech sector's self-made, semi-retired gazilllionaires, who putter around with promising startups and prattle at boring conferences in scenicvacation spots. Facebook users who think that they are addicted to the site don't have anything on MarkZuckerberg.

Mr. Boutin writes about Internet business and culture for VentureBeat, Wired and the New York Times.

--------------------------FT:(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1991c8dc-7400-11df-87f5-00144feabdc0.html)

Timely airing of Facebooks private storyBy David GellesPublished: June 9 2010 23:47 | Last updated: June 9 2010 23:47

The Facebook Effect The Insider Story of the Company that isConnecting the World


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By David Kirkpatrick

Simon & Schuster, $26/Virgin Books, 11.99

For a company bent on making the world more open and connected, agood bit of mystery shrouds the early days ofFacebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the site as a Harvard student in 2004,reached a settlement with two former classmates who had accused him ofstealing their idea; he has also been accused by Facebook co-founderEduardo Saverin of unfairly pushing him out.

Even now, new unflattering details about the companys early dayscontinue to trickle out. A transcript of instant messages recent-ly surfacedthat allegedly show Zuckerberg describing users in critical terms forentrusting Facebook with their data.

Many questions remain about Zuckerberg himself. Who is this young manin control of so much of the worlds personal data? And as the companycomes under fire from critics overprivacy issues, the persistently sketchyunderstanding of Facebooks DNA has compounded its woes.

For that reason alone, the publication of this book, which promises theinside story could not be better timed. David Kirkpatrick, a Fortunemagazine reporter , presents the first authoritative account of Facebooksfounding, its early days, and Zuckerberg himself.

What emerges is a picture of adolescence, rather than arrogance orconniving. Both the company and its founder had enormous expectationsand responsibilities foisted upon them at an early age, and both haveendured very public scrutiny of their growing pains.

In a company run by 20-somethings, some immature missteps are perhapsinevitable, and Kirkpatrick captures the heady early days with detailed

reporting and entertaining anecdotes.

In one, Zuckerberg and his cohortpurposely sabotage a meeting with the partners at Sequoia Capital, one ofSilicon Valleys pre-eminent venture capital firms, as revenge for a friendsbad experience with the investors. Zuckerberg showed up late for themeeting wearing pyjamas, and pitched them a side project.

But for the most part, Zuckerberg has proved deft at navigating the oftentreacherous world of venture capitalists and eager buyers. Both Yahoo and


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Microsoft wanted to buy Facebook for enormous sums of money, but herefused.

From the outset, Kirkpatrick reveals, Zuckerberg has been motivated byhis zeal to make Facebook a transformative company. Were going to

change the world, Zuckerberg says. I think we can make the world amore open place.

In the past six years, he has done as much. Political campaigns now relyon Facebook. Small businesses and large corporations alike advertise onthe site and use it to communicate with customers.

But Facebook also continues to challenge, often making changes thatleave users uncomfortable with how their personal data are used.Kirkpatrick skirts round these issues at a time when they warrant a much

fuller treatment. But he does not dismiss concerns that Facebook mayoverplay its hand, and warns that making more personal information publiccould make Facebook feel more like a place for marketing and less like aplace for friendship.

Kirkpatrick was among the first mainstream journalists to follow theFacebook story closely. He won Zuckerbergs trust early on, and was evenencouraged to write the book. His access and obvious affection forFacebook does not, however, make the book a whitewash. Plenty ofun-seem-ly details are revealed, and Kirkpatrick holds Zuckerberg

accountable for his early gaffes.

For all the anecdotes, however, the book is not about simple gossip. Thereis another one for that: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, is asensationalised retelling of Facebooks early days. Dismissed byFacebook, Mezrichs book is nonetheless the basis for a film, The SocialNetwork, due for release this year.

By contrast, The Facebook Effectis a well-reported account of the first sixyears of one of the most important companies on earth. As Kirkpatrick

writes, The company is increasingly embedded in the fabric of modern lifeand culture. Facebooks social impact continues to broaden.---------------------

Business Week:(http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-09/facebook-founder-has-nothing-to-hide-except-privacy-blind-spot.html)


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Bloomberg

Facebook Founder Has Nothing to HideExcept Privacy Blind SpotJune 09, 2010, 12:02 AM EDTMORE FROM BUSINESSWEEK

Review by Rich Jaroslovsky

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Just what is it with Mark Zuckerberg and privacy?

Maybe its that, at age 26, the Facebook founder and chief executive officer hasnt

been involved in enough things that hed rather keep to himself. Then again, hesurely cant enjoy being at the center of all those constantly recycled stories about

the messy origins of his multibillion-dollar empire.

Or perhaps its that to members of his age cohort -- and calling it the Facebook

Generation isnt too much of a stretch - - the concept of privacy seems as quaint as

a rotary-dial telephone. They understand the idea, but it just isnt relevant in an

always-on, always-connected world.

Whatever it is, to see Zuckerberg in action -- whether in his sweaty on-stageperformance at last weeks D: All Things Digital conference in California, or in the

pages of David Kirkpatricks engrossing new book, The Facebook Effect -- is to see

a man who seems to believe that the burden rests on the individual to take steps to

keep personal information private, and not on the corporations seeking to make use

of such information.

Kirkpatricks portrayal of the young Harvard University dropout is far more

sympathetic, and rings far truer, than the elusive figure in the hooded sweatshirt who

dominated Ben Mezrichs The Accidental Billionaires, published in 2009. Unlike

Mezrich, Kirkpatrick, a former Fortune magazine journalist, had access to

Zuckerberg, though the company had no say over the manuscript.

Scrupulously Fair

The author offers a detailed and scrupulously fair history of Thefacebook, as it was


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then known: how Zuckerberg, already notorious on the Harvard campus for a

sexually tinged website, partnered with a wealthy classmate to launch his college-

based social network; how he signed up to help, and then let down, three other

Harvard students working on their own social site, later spawning heated and costlylitigation; and how he moved to Palo Alto, split with his business partner and was

ushered into the world of big-time finance as practiced by Silicon Valleys venture-

capital community.

Those capitalists were quick to grasp the dazzling marketing possibilities of a site

acting as the repository for so much personal data. In one of the books most

compelling scenes, Zuckerberg excused himself from a dinner hosted by Accel

Partners Jim Breyer to discuss a lucrative investment in the company. A friend found

him on the floor of the mens room, sobbing because accepting the deal would mean

backing out of a commitment he had made to Washington Post Co. and its chairman,

Donald Graham.

Whose Money?

It speaks volumes about Zuckerberg that, at age 20, he called Graham directly to

discuss the dilemma created by the venture-capital offer. It also says something that,

in the end, he took Accels money, not Grahams.

As Facebook explodes into a phenomenon rivaling Google for the title of most-visited

website, a pattern emerges in The Facebook Effect: Almost every time a major new

feature is rolled out, it is done in a way that makes member information more

accessible, rather than less.

If theres an outcry, the company may scale back, but it never seems to learn the

lesson for the next time. Even the release of updated privacy-control features

becomes, for many users, an exercise in privacy damage control when the new

defaults make more information public.The Mark Zuckerberg of The Facebook Effect genuinely believes in the power of

transparency to make the world a better place. He also, insists author Kirkpatrick,

holds a near- religious conviction about the importance of helping people protect

their most sensitive personal data.


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But he combines a firm belief in his own good intentions with a blind spot toward the

sensibilities of a user base that is no longer dominated by college students and by

now encompasses a sizable chunk of the global population. And that should be a

giant concern to those of us who want the power to decide for ourselves whatinformation we want to share, and how well let it be used.

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the

World is published by Simon & Schuster (372 pages, $26). To buy this book in

North America, click here.--Editors: Laurie Muchnick, Jeffrey Burke.-----------

San Francisco Chronicle:

(http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/11/RVU41DNKF8.DTL)

'The Facebook Effect,' by David KirkpatrickG. Pascal Zachary, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, June 11, 2010

the facebook effect

the inside story of the company that is connecting the world

by david kirkpatrick

(simon & schuster; 372 pages; $26)

David Kirkpatrick sets a difficult task for himself in writing a

definitive account of one of the great technology stories of all

time. Facebook - hatched by Harvard students and enormously

popular since moving beyond elite colleges a mere six years ago -

is one of the most controversial companies in the world.


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In "The Facebook Effect," the company's chief executive and

guiding intelligence, a 26-year-old East Coast transplant named

Mark Zuckerberg, comes across as a reclusive know-it-all, an

irascible rebel prone to sophomoric pranks. Kirkpatrickprofusely thanks Zuckerberg for his cooperation, but his is not an

authorized account. In these pages, Zuckerberg so often shops

Facebook for sale to big-name media tycoons, only to reject deals

at the last moment, that his manner seems insulting, even

humiliating. Yet Kirkpatrick finds these failed deals irresistible

copy, so much so that his book might be better titled, "How

Many Times Can One Man Offer to Sell His Company for Billionsof Dollars and Then Renege?"

Kirkpatrick, a superb technology journalist who worked for

Fortune magazine for two decades, is most interested in financial

issues - and especially how rich Zuckerberg will become if ever

he does pull the trigger and sell the company for cash.

Kirkpatrick rarely provides any explanations of how Facebookhas achieved its vaunted "effect" technologically; software

complexity is sacrificed for business simplicity, but Kirkpatrick

doesn't demystify the mechanics of how Facebook created "a

fundamentally new form of communication."

Typical is Kirkpatrick's treatment of Facebook's astonishing

translation tool; the system operates in at least 70 languages.

While Kirkpatrick calls the translation tool "among the

company's greatest product innovations," he never explains what

makes it so. The absence of any such technical explanations is a

shame, especially because, in the early going at Facebook,

Zuckerberg apparently wrote spectacular code. The parallels


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between him and Microsoft's Bill Gates - another Harvard

dropout who wrote code - are obvious and yet unexplored.

There is plenty of business drama in "The Facebook Effect,"

because although Zuckerberg may be famous for igniting

firestorms over the privacy of Facebook users, he seems

ambivalent about capitalism and surprisingly sophomoric about

business.

"We'll figure that out later" is Zuckerberg's standard answer to

hyperventilating financiers who insist that Facebook sits atop

untapped riches. Rather than chasing revenues, Zuckerberg

chases users; his desire to expand his social network seems

insatiable - and is as close as anything to the real secret of his

success.

Throughout this fast-paced book, Zuckerberg holds center stage,

the one constant amid a bewildering array of supporting but

ultimately disposable characters. The story of how Zuckerberghatched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room - and managed

to overcome largely spurious complaints over code theft by

jealous Harvard undergrads - makes for gripping reading.

But once Zuckerberg drops out and relocates to Palo Alto,

Kirkpatrick struggles to maintain his tale. Zuckerberg, it turns

out, is no business whiz; he doesn't talk much to his colleaguesand he cycles through senior managers about as quickly as

Raiders owner Al Davis sours on coaches. Having spawned one

of the biggest social movements in the world, built around an

Internet-based software system, Zuckerberg has yet to figure out


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how to balance the tensions between promoting human

community and earning significant profit.

Befitting a writer whose journalism appeared in a magazine

devoted to the rich and super-successful, Kirkpatrick views

Facebook as a singular pursuit of the Big Score. Yet earning large

profit - indeed any profit - from Facebook has proved difficult for

two reasons.

First, fans of Facebook span the globe; 70 percent of the 500

million people who use it at least once a month live outside the

United States. The far-flung and polyglot nature of Facebook

users makes marketing to them difficult and not especially

attractive.

Then there is the more profound problem that experiencing

Facebook is more like watching a movie than doing a Google

search. Facebook seems like entertainment, a way of passing the

time. Google improves productivity, helps a person get stuff donefaster. Though new features on Facebook are starting to offer

more productivity options, the core attraction remains social.

To be sure, the Facebook story is unfinished. The company seems

balanced between finding business wealth from its service and

imploding, abandoned by frustrated fans who shift their

allegiances to other idle pursuits - or are concerned aboutprotecting their user information.

Zuckerberg, no longer a neophyte, is clearly shrewd, brilliant and

wildly ambitious. Don't bet against him finding a way to achieve

both a stable business and a distinctive social good - an


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achievement that will surely spawn more books about him.

G. Pascal Zachary, a former writer for the Wall Street Journal, is

the author of "The Diversity Advantage: Multicultural Identity in

the New World Economy." E-mail him at

[email protected].

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/11/RVU41DNKF8.DTL

This article appeared on page SN - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

-------------------Newark Star-Ledgerhttp://blog.nj.com/entertainment_impact_arts/print.html?entry=/2010/06/the_facebook_effect_book_revie.html

Home>Arts>Books

'The Facebook Effect' book review: The

face behind Facebook

Published: Sunday, June 13, 2010In 2004, student Mark Zuckerberg sought Harvards permission to put thestudent directory online. Harvard, worried about the legal issues ofdisseminating student information, refused. So Zuckerberg designedThefacebook, where students could post their own information and photos.One month later, Thefacebook had 10,000 members, including Harvardalumni.Hmmm, mused Zuckerberg in his dorm room.Recruiting friends, he expanded the program to other Ivy League schools, and soon it exploded onto

campuses across the U.S. Four months after its launch, Zuckerberg turned down an offer of $10 million forhis online directory.

This fascinating book with access to all the players traces Facebooks rise from its college origins, toraising capital, to how the news feed came about. Now a 1,200-employee operation with annual revenues ofmore than $500 million, Kirkpatrick says Facebooks next frontier is global expansion.As for the current debate over privacy, Zuckerberg says if you want something to remain private, keep itin your head.

The Facebook Effect


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David KirkpatrickSimon & Schuster, 334 pp., $26Reviewed by Carolyn Hinsey

Carolyn Hinsey is a freelance writer from Manhattan.

-----------------------

Forbes

Commentary

The Problem With FacebookQuentin Hardy, 06.23.10, 6:00 AM ETWriting recent history is risky. If the events are momentous, they still need the impact of years and decadesto be judged. To be sure you are marking a fundamental change in human society borders on theimpossible--such events happen just a few times a century, and (barring things like ecological collapse)rarely with anyone's ability to see at the time that anything has changed.That doesn't mean you are wrong. You just need to bring your best evidence, and your best skepticism.A just-published chronicle of the first years of Facebook, The Facebook Effect, by David Kirkpatrick,

scores admirably on the evidence front. The social network has, in a little over six years, picked up 500million users, sucked up a good bit of the world's free time, and not incidentally made possible new formsof organization among strangers that have affected the policies of nations.In addition, founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose thoughts and personality infuse Facebook, has quickly

become one of the few globally-recognized individuals. He and his cohorts, for the most part very young,affluent, and privileged, also believe all of our doings should be visible to everyone, with a fervor redolentof a late-night study session. The book does an admirable job telling the story.As he learns a bit more about adult life's very real complexities, Zuckerberg--now a billionaire--may bechanging his thinking about full transparency across all life's roles, at least where he is concerned. Hesquirms when his arrogant early e-mails are described, and has said he would rather not have a film madeof his life while he is still around.Whether Facebook "now sits squarely at the center of a fundamental realignment of capitalism," asKirkpatrick states, however, remains an open question. I am inclined to agree, just because social

networking seems like a big behavioral shift. But so far, the numbers aren't there.In fact, they are random. Kirkpatrick chronicles valuations for the company of $15 billion in 2007, $2.5

billion in 2008, $10 billion and $7.5 billion in two separate 2009 deals. Rather than note that investorsMicrosoft and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, who came in at the high end, may have been snookered,he concludes, "it's hard to say what Facebook is really worth." Revenues were maybe $500 million in 2009,

but there is no sense of possible profit margins. The 30% that Facebook retains on sales of virtual currencyfor use in purchasing virtual goods--a cut that would shame a mobster--suggests the potential for fat profitmargins. (A recent news report from Reuters carried in theNew YorkDaily News, citing "sources familiarwith the situation" put Facebook's 2009 revenues somewhere between $700 million and $800 million and

profits in the "tens of millions of dollars.") So much, on the other hand, for fat margins.That serious venture capitalists and corporations are essentially throwing money at a force they can'tquantify may indicate Facebook's power. So also, perhaps, do a few other questions that are implicitlyraised, but not really answered, in this book, among them:--Are the online connections in Facebook really authentic, or are they a series of relatively lightweightemotional flickerings? Kirkpatrick's book shows the key aspects of Facebook's growth have been namingfriends, tagging people in photographs, and later joining groups that ranged from sheep throwers and

pretend gangsters, to a few select causes. Even the most impactful of Facebook-spawned social movementsconsist largely of donation drives, or protests against one or another wrong (saying "no!" as loudly as

possible may be the political hallmark of our age). These are gestures, far more than collective, positivecommitments.


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--Should Facebook guide its policies on privacy based on what people say they want, or on what users do?People say they want privacy and control, but then Zuckerberg sees them seek publicity and exposure bythe millions. Which is the just thing for him to give them?--Should our lives--working, married, filial, parental, personal, inner--really be visible to all, includingadvertisers? Without a healthy level of artifice, what is society?--Zuckerberg speaks of Facebook in the context of a potlatch, a form of ritualized giving that supported thesocieties of some Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest. In his anthropology student's zeal, however, hemisses the way these also led to inflation and the destruction of goods, and were sometimes akin to the

patronage of a Chicago ward boss. Can that really be extended to a global system?--What is advertising in this world? Google is really not much different from age-old direct marketing, inwhich a propensity for product interest is discerned, and a pitch made. Facebook's appeal to corporationsdoes not speak of such a direct moment of commerce, but rather of a deep involvement within their skein offriends and passions. That is something beyond the aims of even expensive brand advertising.That these questions cannot be answered may be a mark of Facebook's short history. That we can even raisethem seriously gives some indication of the company's continuing importance.To read more of Quentin Hardy's stories, click here. Contact the writer [email protected]

Campus Progress (project of the Center for American Progress)

Books:Reviews of the latest books, political and otherwise.

Facebook, Love It or Hate It, Changedthe Game Forever

The outsized ambition of Facebook CEO MarkZuckerberg shows the advantages anddisadvantages of going ahead of the curve.

By Adam PeckJune 28, 2010

(Flickr/digitalbear)On Jan. 4, 2008, Colombian citizen Oscar Morales,tired of reading endless stories of kidnappings bythe Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia(FARC), began a group on Facebook as a sign of


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opposition to the militant organization. Just onemonth later, the group, Un Millon de Voces ContraLas FARC, held a massive demonstration to voice

its anger. An estimated 10 million Colombiansparticipated.

The Colombia demonstration was a shiningexample of what former senior editor at Fortunemagazine David Kirkpatrick calls The FacebookEffect, the title of his new book. Kirkpatrick outlinesthe meteoric rise of both Facebook and ofZuckerberg himself. The Colombia eventsgrandeur and spontaneity echoed 26-year-oldFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs own outsizedambition.

Zuckerberg dreamed early on of turning Facebookinto a global platform. In early conversations with

Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners, a Facebookinvestor, Zuckerberg ignored advice to take it slowon the platform idea. At the time, Facebook had sixemployees. He responded to Efrusys advice byholding a conversation with Microsoft CEO BillGates.

The history of Facebook is the stuff of Hollywood so much so, in fact, that a big-studio moviewritten by West Wingand Studio 60creator AaronSorkin based on the story is set for wide releasethis fall. Zuckerberg built the earliest versions of


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Facebook while a student at Harvard University,only to pack up and move to California with a smallteam of friends as the site began to expand

beyond Cambridge, Mass. In the following years,the site underwent several big changes. First, thesite moved beyond a focus on students andopened itself up opened to the broader public.Then, businesses. Then Facebook allowed webdevelopers to create applications. Then Facebookintroduced the News Feed.

At each step, Zuckerberg aggressively pushed forthe changes, often against considerable oppositionfrom Facebook users. When the site underwent amassive redesign in September 2006, there wasZuckerberg, guiding users through the new layoutand new features. When applications were firstintroduced to Facebook in 2007, a then-23-year-oldZuckerberg was the one to take the stage in frontof some of the most powerful moguls in the worldto demonstrate the new features.

Almost every time, Zuckerberg emerged victorious.The most notable exception came recently, withthe advent and implementation of new privacy

settings and the controversial opt-out policy,where users were automatically assigned looserprivacy settings and had to manually change themto limit what other users could see.


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What stands out most in Kirkpatricks account isthe amateurish way Facebook came together. Itwasnt until 2008 that Facebook brought on board

Sheryl Sandberg, a former executive at Google, asChief Operating Officer to give the company the airof professionalism that perhaps many assumedFacebook had possessed after it expanded beyonda college audience.

Zuckerberg expedited the hiring of a COO thanksin part to what has become commonly referred toas the single biggest misstep to date by thecompany; the so-called Beacon feature, a fairlysimple plugin that posted information about ausers conduct elsewhere on the Internet. Userslogged into their profiles to find their onlinepurchases or other interactions displayed on theirWalls without warning, for all to see. The damagedone by the bad publicity that resulted fromBeacon lingers to this day. It was the launch ofBeacon that spurred anti-Facebook activism byindividuals and groups like Move On.

Zuckerberg was on the front lines during the recentcriticism over its new privacy policies, drafting blog

posts and memos to users explaining why he feltthey were necessary, and ultimately acquiescing tothe mounting complaints of the sites users. Thepress took notice as well and began hammeringZuckerberg and his company for breaching what


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they saw as Facebooks compact: A commitmentto privacy and user control of information.

Lawsuits, some still pending, have been filedagainst the company and its CEO at a steadypace. Much of media criticism remains cautiousabout the intentions and practices of the company;business transactions with the site now involvemonetary figures in the tens of billions of dollars.

Still, just barely seven years after its initial launch,

Facebook has about 500 million users, annualrevenue topping $1 billion, and is the second mosthighly trafficked website in the world behind onlyGoogle. It is endlessly expanding its offerings andmember rolls. And it shows no sign of slowingdown on college campuses either.

At some point down the road, after Facebook hasevolved further in tandem with our evolvingunderstanding of privacy in the age of the Internet,or perhaps has been usurped entirely, students willlook back at what was a revolutionary platform anda once-in-a-lifetime business and learn somethingvaluable. If this book does nothing else, it serves

as evidence to future generations that Facebooksideas criticized in the present as overreaching,prying and even a bit creepy may actually beahead of the times.


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Adam Peck is an editorial intern with CampusProgress.---------

Blog on Books:

The Facebook Effect David Kirkpatrick

(Simon & Schuster)July 7, 2010 Somehow now seems like the perfect time for an all encompassing report on both the historyand state of social networking behemoth Facebook. Having experienced what can only be described astorrid growth closing in on a half-billion users while still taking in private money prior to a muchanticipated eventual IPO (2011?), Facebook is unquestionably the most important social utility to ever hitthe web.In the newly released, The Facebook Effect,former Fortune magazine technology editor, DavidKirkpatrick takes a deep dive into the innerworkings of what made college upstart TheFacebook into thedominant new media player on the web today. All the famous stories from the borrowing (stealing?) ofthe original concept from ConnectU and houseSYSTEM, to the fever-pitched growth, through early stageinvestor meetings, the move from Harvard to Palo Alto, important hirings along the way (did you knowSteve Chen worked at theFacebook for a few weeks before leaving to co-found YouTube?) to meetings and

partnerships with Fortune 500 advertisers and media companies are well documented here. Even examplesof competitive positioning (FB vs. myspace, Twitter, even Google) to recent acquisitions like FriendFeedare part of keeping the story timely and up to the moment.From what appears to be full cooperation from most of the key players in the still young Facebook

pantheon, including multiple interviews with Mark Zuckerberg himself, Kirkpatrick tells the story of ayoung, ambitious company that experiences nearly every kind of growing pain known to man, while still

forging ahead on its stated purpose to make society open while creating and maintaining the socialgraph. Along the way, plenty of issues (privacy, advertising vs. user experience) and iterations arerevealed explaining why some features/apps worked well (Farmville exploded Facebook in Taiwan) andwhy others met a dismal fate (uhh Beacon).More than anything what emerges is the story of young Zuckerbergs coming of age. When investorswanted more maturity infused into the company, the young leader reluctantly agreed. When he found a newgirlfriend, he negotiated for 100 minutes of time a week. Within this fast-paced read, it appears nothing ofsignificance was left behind.What is most striking about the book is the even handed nature by which it is all delivered. Kirkpatrick

paints a deft portrait of everything that makes Facebook what it is today. In this respect, the FacebookEffect, much like Ken Aulettas excellent Googled, is one of the best new media business books of theyear.The Facebook Effects Facebook page

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Blogcritics and Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Saturday, July 10, 2010Last updated 10:56 a.m. PT

Book Review: The Facebook Effect: The


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Inside Story Of The Company That IsConnecting The World by David KirkpatrickBy GREG BARBRICKBLOGCRITICS.ORG

Facebooks growth since its inception in 2004 has been nothing short ofphenomenal. With a membership hovering at around a half a billion peopletoday, the ubiquitous site is an Internet success story like no other. In TheFacebook Effect: The Inside Story OfThe CompanyThat Is ConnectingThe World, author David Kirkpatrick tells the remarkable tale of thisindustry colossus, and of the man behind it all, Mark Zuckerberg.

As it was originally known, Thefacebook.com launched on February 4,2004, out of Zuckerbergs Harvard dorm room. The site was incrediblyexclusive, you had to have an email ending in Harvard.edu to join. It

became so popular that Zuckerberg and his staff (his roommates)decided to offer it to other Ivy League schools shortly afterwards.

Thus began the snowball momentum that continues to drive Facebookforward to this day. Soon the doors were opened to all U.S. colleges, thenhigh schools, and finally to everybody else. Zuckerberg and companymoved out to Silicon Valley just for the summer after their first year atHarvard. They never went back.

Kirkpatrick was able to speak with the early players in the story fairly

extensively, including Zuckerberg himself. The account of these nineteen-year-old kids building up a company valued at $15 billion over the courseof just a few years is stunning. The growth pains that accompany suchrapid success are also discussed, and Zuckerbergs talent for gettingadvice from older dot-com veterans has helped Facebook survive somepotentially fatal experiences.

The first two-thirds ofThe Facebook Effecttrace the business growth from2004 to 2010. It makes for fascinating reading. The last hundred pages orso are devoted to chapters such as Facebook And The World, The

Evolution Of Facebook, and The Future.

These speculative essays wereprobably necessary to balance out the book, but they are the leastinteresting portions ofThe Facebook Effect.

David Kirkpatrick is a former senior editor at Fortune magazine, and hiswriting style is a winning combination of business facts mixed with thequirky personalities of the key players.The Facebook Effectis informativeand fun, a rare combination in the world of business books. For up to the


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minute information on the biggest social networking site the world has everknown, it is recommended.--------

New Scientist:

Is Facebook taking over theworld?13:40 25 June 2010Books

Jim Giles

Without Mark Zuckerberg, will Facebook be the same? (Image: Justin

Sullivan / Getty)

Here's one of the scariest passages from The Facebook Effect: "In

five years there won't be a distinction between being on and off

Facebook," says a former Facebook employee who claims still to be

"deeply involved" with the company. "It will be something that goes

with you wherever you are communicating with people."

Facebook's plans for world domination are born of its mission to help

people connect and share. It seems to be working. Its 400-million-

plus users have an average of 130 friends each. Many websites,

including New Scientist's, encourage readers to share content on

Facebook. Users play games that exist only in Facebook. They send

messages within the site rather than using email. Facebook is

creating an infrastructure so useful that its customers rarely need to

go elsewhere.

More than half of its users log in every day.

Should we welcome Facebook's relentless expansion? Mark

Zuckerberg, the precocious and intense 26-year-old who built the site

during his first year at Harvard University, insists it exists to help

people connect and share. It's easy to feel cynical about such

pronouncements: Zuckerberg's share of Facebook is worth $4 billion.


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But journalist David Kirkpatrick gained exceptional access to

Facebook's founder and reports that Zuckerberg consistently puts

these goals above short-term profit.

Kirkpatrick's account is convincing and engrossing. What is

frustrating, however, is his decision to place Zuckerberg's pureness of

ambition at the heart of the story, as if we should take the founder's

sincerity as evidence that Facebook is a force for good, rather than

question the impact the site has on our lives.

Zuckerberg, for example, is excited that political activists can utilise

Facebook to rally support. Kirkpatrick cites a 2009 study showing that

membership of political groups on the site encourages political

participation in the real world, but he fails to mention that the same

study also found that Facebook had no effect on people's political

knowledge. Facebook might foster political engagement, but by

exposing people only to their friends' ideas it could equally well

encourage groupthink.

A more troubling question is whether a private company should be

allowed to handle so much of the world's communications. Of course,we already trust private postal firms and telephone companies. But

Facebook users are regularly confronted with unwanted changes to

the site that many feel expose too much of their personal information.

Facebook describes these updates as steps in its mission for

openness, but one can't help noticing that each change is attractive

to advertisers, who can use the information to better target their

messages.

Facebook also retains control over the content on its site. Pages

relating to criticism of pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong were

allegedly removed without reason this February. Around the same

time, the Argentinian author of a satirical book about Facebook is

reported to have had his profile removed, as did two others involved

in the publication. According to critics, in all these cases Facebook


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reinstated the pages only after media protests, though the company

says that the accounts were disabled in error.

If Kirkpatrick's account of the firm's ethos is accurate, it seems unlikely that the removal of thepages was part of a larger plan to censor criticism or bow to Beijing's will, but in a sense that does

not matter.One day Zuckerberg will leave Facebook, and the company's moral compass mayshift. Facebook may by then be even more central to our communications. Before that day

comes, it would be worth asking whether we want to place a commercial organisation at the heartof our social interactions.

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Nonfiction review: 'The Facebook Effect' by DavidKirkpatrickSpecial to The OregonianPosted: 06/26/2010 11:02 AM

Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a geeky Harvardundergraduate, Facebook has become the second-most-visited site on the Internet (after Google), with more than 350million active viewers worldwide. Already available in about70 languages, the social network is growing at a mind-boggling rate of 5 percent a month -- and having a profound

impact on communications and connectivity in the 21stcentury.

In "The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the CompanyThat Is Connecting the World," David Kirkpatrick, senioreditor for Internet and technology at Fortune magazine,draws on unprecedented access to Zuckerberg to provide afast-paced and fascinating account of the company'sphenomenal success and an early-days assessment of theways in which it is changing the values, interests andbehavior of the "Facebook using hordes."

Kirkpatrick, it's clear, is a fan of Facebook. Zuckerberg, hebelieves, is a brilliant, high-minded, visionary CEO who


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refused to make his company's bottom line a priority.Kirkpatrick shares his view that it's good for society toencourage people to openly acknowledge who they are andact consistently with their friends. Like Zuckerberg, he hopes

that Facebook can restore the kind of intimacy evisceratedby modern, post-industrial life and, at the same time, createwhat media theorist Marshall McLuhan called "the globalvillage."

Noting that Facebook users want to share information aboutthemselves and somehow control access to it, Kirkpatrickacknowledges that software cannot provide ironclad

protections against invasions of privacy. But it helps, hepoints out, that Facebook provides mechanisms for users toput friends into groups and decide what to disclose to whom.And he gives "some credence" to the argument that in amore open and transparent world, people will behave moreresponsibly because they know they'll be held to theconsequences of their actions, and standards aboutindiscretions will be relaxed.

Kirkpatrick may be right. For better and worse, Zuckerbergmay turn out to have been right as well that if he built it (acompany that connects the world), they (the marketers)would come. Although it has yet to turn a profit, Facebookrecently was valued at $10 billion. With more -- and better --data about users than any other website, it's become amagnet for investors and advertisers.

Facebook staffers often joke that the company aims at "totaldomination." The "reason it's funny," Kirkpatrick concludes,"is that it evokes a surprising truth."

THE FACEBOOK EFFECTDavid Kirkpatrick


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Simon & Schuster$26, 384 pages

-- Glenn C. Altschuler

---------http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/18/the-facebook-effect-david-kirkpatrick-book-review/print

The Guardian/Observer, UK 7/18/10

The Facebook Effect by David

KirkpatrickDavid Kirkpatrick was handed the keys to the Facebook kingdom the result is the definitive account of itsphenomenal rise

o James Harkino The Observer, Sunday 18 July 2010

o

o Facebooks CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, views his creation as asocial movement. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/ASSOCIATEDPRESS

Last month Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, stood in front of an industry conference inLas Vegas and announced that email was on the way out. Figures showed that only 11% of teenagers use

email on a daily basis, she said; most preferred to send messages via social networks such as Facebook.Even though she herself couldn't imagine life without it, she predicted that email "is probably going away".

Sandberg's figures weren't quite right; they referred to data on how many American teenagerswere using email to communicate with their friends on a daily basis, not how they were using it in general.Given Facebook's enormous success in colonising our online activity, however, there's every reason to takeher hubristic ambition seriously. A good way to understand that ambition is to read David Kirkpatrick'snew book. In the summer of 2006 Kirkpatrick, a former technology writer forFortune, found himselfinvited to dinner with Facebook's youthful CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, as part of the company's charmoffensive. He subsequently won unprecedented access to Zuckerberg and 39 of his top employees to gathermaterial for this book, a kind of official history of the company and the most comprehensive account of itsrise yet.Facebook began life in a student room in 2003, and its original function was to enable Zuckerberg and hisfellow Harvard students to rate each other's attractiveness and flirt with each other electronically; thus was

born Facebook's signature double entendre, the poke. Before long Facebook had morphed into an all-purpose public facility, allowing students to huddle together in groups and forge whatever electronicconnections they liked. To Zuckerberg's surprise he suspected it might be a fad Facebook rapidly spreadto other universities, then to schools and then to everyone else. The statistics are mind-boggling. In Januaryof this year Facebook claimed 350 million active users, who spend a collective 8 billion minutes thereevery day.Facebook's arrival was timely, coming as it did just as more of us got used to spending time hooked up tofast internet connections. Kirkpatrick shows us how brilliantly Zuckerberg polished his new machine,constantly cleaning its minimalist look and cultivating its hunger for ever more data. The site's real engineof growth, though, was its built-in network effect. Like any other communications network, Facebook's


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usefulness grew as more people signed up and found each other; that, in turn, became a powerful incentivefor new arrivals to pass the wo

Documents

Reviews of the Facebook Effect in Major Media Since Early June