For this week I will examine the first section of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. Virtually everyone in our society is able to recognize what Facebook is, and an very large portion participates in it's online social network. The popularity of Facebook is enormous and it is obvious that because it influences many people's actions every day. Students across the country are tortured by the looming question: To do homework, or to check my notifications? With so many people all using the same service one must wonder what effects it will have on our society.
The Facebook Effect begins with the history of Facebook. I was pretty well aware of a lot of this information after seeing the movie The Social Network where they follow Zuckerburg from his young days at Harvard. To me it is truly amazing that one person could be creating such amazing computer programs such as Facemash. I have taken programming courses and the difficulty of them is almost unbearable for me and that helps me respect the work that The Facebook team has done in order to accomplish their goal so quickly. As a side note: it seems like every time I get used to Facebook there is a new template and new features. It baffles me that the company can remain ahead of the users so often.
A really interesting part of the book for me is how Facebook is largely considered the reason Myspace is no longer used. For me personally It has been forever since I have even used Myspace to listen to music or anything like that. After reading this section I began to think about what the differences between Myspace and Facebook were. I realized that essentially they were the same, a social networking tool that people could use to stay in touch. However, just like in the movie, I believe that Facebook was able to succeed because it was "exclusive". Unlike Myspace, Facebook used to require a collegiate e-mail address and that made it "cool". Myspace allowed anyone to use its website, and because of that a large amount of "creepers" joined the network thus making it less appealing than the exclusivity of the Facebook community.
The other thing that made Facebook last longer than other things was probably the fact that it began so simply. Unlike Myspace users could not create flashy backgrounds with music and annoying ads etc. Facebook only recently began using ads and they are not too cumbersome to be honest and due to the algorithms used the ads generally apply to the user. By creating a more simple website, Zuckerburg erased the opportunity for users to be overwhelmed by the Facebook "world".
Overall I have enjoyed reading Kirkpatricks book The Facebook Effect thus far because it is something that touches my daily lives. I look forward to continuing the book and hopefully will enjoy the rest of it as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment