Critical Analysis #11

For this week I will take a look at the second section of Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect.  In this section Kirkpatrick discusses the investors and how Facebook was funded early on.  Again, from watching the movie The Social Network I feel like I did know some of this information, but I would say the majority in this section was new to me.  I can't believe that as college aged kids the founders of Facebook were as far along as they were.  They were already seeking, and eventually fighting off investors who wanted to claim their stake in Facebook.  One section of the book that I found to be very interesting is on page 110 when he writes, "As soon as word got out that Thefacebook was contemplating an investment, the Silicon Valley greed machine kicked into high gear.  Inquiries started pouring in."  To me it is shocking that so many people wanted to invest.

What I also find interesting is that since, "Mark was kind of against ads, as far as [they] could tell" Thefacebook had to find other sources of income to keep the website running.  So many people used the internet to make money and using ad space is the most simple way to create a profit.  However, because Zuckerburg chose not to, Thefacebook had to find money elsewhere.  I believe that this, combined with the enormous marketing potential of Thefacebook led to the immense amount of people who wanted to invest.

Later in the book Kirkpatrick writes about how Facebook developed into a young company and not just kids running a website.  He discusses many things such as how they basically reinvented privacy.  He writes that, "Only one in one hundred messages to Facebook about News Feed was positive" (189).  No one liked the News Feed at first, however now it is an integral part of Facebook.  I also found it interesting how Kirkpatrick explained how the Photos team decided to make it so you can click anywhere on the photo to advance and also how the photos were lower resolution so people can view many photos quickly.  I found this to be extremely interesting because it makes me realize how smart the Facebook team is.  Facebook is not accidentally addicting.  It was well thought out and I think that is the main reason Facebook has become what it is today.  Kirkpatrick describes these events and does a great job giving credit to the people behind Facebook.  Overall I enjoy reading this book and look forward to finishing it because it is about something that is involved in my life.