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The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
 
 
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The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World [Hardcover]

David Kirkpatrick (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)

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Book Description

June 8, 2010
IN LITTLE MORE THAN HALF A DECADE, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects—even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran.

Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next. He chronicles its successes and missteps, and gives readers the most complete assessment anywhere of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the central figure in the company’s remarkable ascent. This is the Facebook story that can be found nowhere else.

How did a nineteen-year-old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the Internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the Internet. In the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of our own identity. This is the Facebook Effect.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There's never been a Web site like Facebook: more than 350 million people have accounts, and if the growth rate continues, by 2013 every Internet user worldwide will have his or her own page. And no one's had more access to the inner workings of the phenomenon than Kirkpatrick, a senior tech writer at Fortune magazine. Written with the full cooperation of founder Mark Zuckerberg, the book follows the company from its genesis in a Harvard dorm room through its successes over Friendster and MySpace, the expansion of the user base, and Zuckerberg's refusal to sell. The author is at his best discussing the social implications of the site, from the changing notions of privacy to why and how people use Facebook—increasingly it's to come together around a common interest or cause (the eponymous Facebook Effect). Though significantly more informative, thoughtful, and credible than Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, it may be hamstrung by its late entry; the furor over Facebook has more or less subsided, and potential readers are more likely to be using the site than to be reading about its origins. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The greatest measure of the appeal of a business narrative is its story-ability, that is, the ways in which the tale of a corporation’s ups and downs grabs its readers. Such is the case with Fortune magazine journalist Kirkpatrick’s look at Facebook and its growth. The reason? In part because its co-founder now CEO Mark Zuckerberg allowed almost unprecedented access to the author––not one but several times. The results seems to mirror Zuckerberg’s insistence on an “open and transparent” dialogue with itself and with its customers. Starting from a 2003 Harvard campus Web site created to keep track of schoolmates, Facebook has grown in less than a decade to nearly a half billion users and multimillions in revenues, a growth trajectory credited to its C-suite’s unwavering vision and its continual innovations––including News Feed, multiple applications, and self-service advertising. Talented people, too, add to the explosion that is Facebook; Kirkpatrick’s pages are populated with names like Steve Ballmer, Lawrence Summers, Larry Brin, and lesser-known others who’ve contributed to this social networking phenomenon. Kirkpatrick also keeps his superlatives in check, weaving stories about Zuckerberg and his cadre while clearly showing the warts as well. An intriguing, almost participatory, read. --Barbara Jacobs

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 8, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1439102112
  • ISBN-13: 978-1439102114
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Kirkpatrick is the author of the definitive book on Facebook, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World, to be publshed by Simon & Schuster June 15, 2010. He was for many years senior editor for internet and technology at Fortune, which he joined in 1983. He covered the computer and technology industry as well as the impact of the Internet on business and society. Among his many articles were cover stories about Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Sun, and Intel, plus features on Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, and Technology in China.

A meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in September 2006--at the height of the company's News Feed controversy--first piqued his interest in the company. Zuckerberg at that meeting was calm and focused, despite having stayed up late the night before writing an apology to his members. Kirkpatrick told Zuckerberg he seemed like a natural CEO, and the 22-year-old acted offended. He didn't see himself as a businessman, but as a tech pioneer. From then on, Kirkpatrick followed Facebook carefully, writing about it regularly for Fortune.

When he told Zuckerberg he wanted to write a book about the company, in January 2008, the young CEO's reaction was immediate. "Go for it!" he said. So, Kirkpatrick did. With extensive cooperation from the company and Zuckerberg, and following innumerable interviews with all of Facebook's leaders, he has written a book that chronicles Facebook's history at the same time it examines the company's impact on society and modern social life. In fact, Kirkpatrick argues, it is only by understanding Facebook's history that one can understand why the company does what it does. And understanding the company should enable you to use its service more effectively and intelligently.

Kirkpatrick is regularly ranked one of the world's top technology journalists. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, with a year at age 11 in Lagos, Nigeria. He was the creator of Fortune's Brainstorm conference series beginning in 2001. Now, with a group of former Fortune colleagues, he is organizing a conference called Techonomy, focusing on the centrality of technology innovation for all spheres of human activity. It takes place August 4-6, 2010 at the Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe. Kirkpatrick is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Customer Reviews

78 Reviews
5 star:
 (46)
4 star:
 (21)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
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1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (78 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating history (but not an analysis)of a global phenomenon, June 5, 2010
By 
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Hardcover)
Remarkably detailed history of a unique company. Kirkpatrick, a scrupulous journalist, who was encouraged to write the book by Facebook's controversial founder, gives a detailed play-by-play of how Facebook amassed half a billion users. He provides a fascinating history of how the company was built, and manages to touch upon most of the controversies surrounding it. But, perhaps because of the access given to him by Zuckerberg, the founder and not-so-benevolent dictator running the company, he avoids any substantial critique of the actions and motivations of the facebook management team. Possibly because of the book's timing - it must have been completed in April or so - he doesn't address the company's most recent issues and, most importantly, he provides little insight to help the reader understand Zuckerberg and why and how he manages to get himself into so much trouble, particulary around the topic of user privacy, though we get plenty of anecdotes about his behavior and maturation. There is also very little reflection about where Internet advances, as exemplified by facebook, will take our economy or society. But this is still a "must read" for anyone interested in the evolution of the Internet and how facebook got here and managed to monopolize billions of hours of our collective attention.
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly Insightful Account of the True Facebook Story, June 23, 2010
By 
This review is from: The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Hardcover)
I've just finished reading The Facebook Effect, and it was like a movie I didn't want to end. I'm considering reading it again. As a budding internet startup entrepreneur, learning from major successes, such as Facebook, is incredibly valuable. The problem is, where can you learn about the juicy details that essentially positioned a company like Facebook to be so ubiquitous? Details such as:

- how Facebook gained so much traffic early on
- how they scaled the site school by school
- the major decisions Mark and his team grappled with at every stage
- the strategy and thought process that went through Zuckerberg's mind
- how they raised their first dollar of investment
- what sort of information did they pitch their first professional investors
- etc...

It includes everything that an internet startup entrepreneur would want to know, encapsulated in one of the world's most fascinating phenomenon -- The Facebook Effect.

Enjoy.
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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging read, June 15, 2010
By 
M. Clarke (Greenwich, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Hardcover)
Kirkpatrick was for years one of Fortune's best writers, and that talent is on full display here. He assesses the often broad and complex situations around facebook deftly, in accessible and subtle ways. But it's when he lets his interview subjects speak in their own words -- from founder to current and past executives to investors -- that the book really shines. It's better than a good book, it's an important book.
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