The Facebook Effect II

In this installment of the Facebook Effect three part blog mini-series we start to the see how Facebook is transforming from a dorm room project to a billion dollar company. The first part in this section of the book discusses investors, specifically that of the Washington Post. Thefacebook (at the time the 'the' was still in there) was ready to take the next big plunge into corporatism. They allready had some investors that Sean Parker, formerly of Napster, had dug up, but this one seemed like a big deal. Kirkpatrick emphasizes the positive vibes that Zuckerberg and Don Graham, leader of the Washington Post, were bouncing off each other during their meeting. While Kirkpatrick still hardly remains objective when discussing Mark Zuckerberg I can realize that this moment is a big one for the company.

By this time, it is clear that Zuckerberg is hardly a business man. He has a set of ideas derived from psychoanalyzing average college students that he and other people know have the ability to make a lot of money. However, advertising is how you make money on websites and this is something he has expressed a strong disinterest in. I feel like the introduction of investors as large as the Post would eventually lead to the increase in advertising that we experience on Facebook today.

Throughout the next couple years, due to the help of major investors, Facebook started incorporating new applications into their website. The photo app became one of its biggest successes as well as the ability to plan events and invite people to them. By 2006, Facebook was in a good place and had just implemented its newest addition to keep people up-to-date on what their friends were doing. This idea was the 'News Feed'. The algorithms involved behind what shows up on the News Feed were pretty interesting and lend themselves to a lot of the data mining accusations made against Facebook. The News Feed apparently analyzes your Facebook habits and bases what you will see on the your frontpage on that. Recently the same thing has been done with the Facebook Ads. They cater to your claimed interests and then request feedback on whether or not you thought the ad was helpful. As far as advertising goes, its still annoying, but at least its better than looking at stuff you have absolutely no interest in.