The Facebook Effect (Part One)

The Facebook Effect (Part One)

The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick seems like a book version of the film, The Social Network, if the people of Facebook had anything to do with making it. Underneath the title of the book on its cover, it says that the book is an insider story of how Facebook, a company that's "connecting the world", was created. The book provides a profile of Facebook's creator Mark Zuckerberg, much like The Social Network did, but instead of portraying him as a complete asshole, he is depicted in a more credible (though a little too flattering) light.

The first portion of the book discusses the one particular way that Facebook was used as way for a Columbian man to organize and connect with people to support his cause. This little story shows the bias that Kirkpatrick has on Facebook. He's already painting a pretty picture of Facebook and how people use it as a tool to organize politically.

After the touching story, the author provides a history behind Facebook. It mentions previous social internet mediums, such as AIM, and other social networking sites, such as MySpace as a reference to how Facebook would be different while borrowing specific features and enhancing them. Kirkpatrick also tells the actual history behind the making of Facebook -- the people involved, why they did it, how they did it.

It was interesting to read the book after watching the film. There is a lot of overlap. But as I said before, Kirkpatrick paints a more flattering picture of Zuckerberg than the film did.