The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World by David Kirkpatrick

The exclusive inside story of Facebook and how it has revolutionized the way the world uses the Internet. A fantastic book, filled with great reporting and colorful narrative (Walter Isaacson). 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. Editorial Reviews Mr. Kirkpatrick...was encouraged by Mr. Zuckerberg to write this book and was granted extensive access to him and his associates. Their cooperation has resulted in a mostly sympathetic...account of the company, though Mr. Kirkpatrick does not shy away from dissecting its missteps and successive disputes over privacy. He gives the reader a detailed understanding of how the company grew from a 2004 Harvard dorm-room project into the world's second-most-visited site after Google. -The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani 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) - Publishers Weekly This is a fantastic book, filled with great reporting and colorful narrative. The human drama of Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues gives an exciting glimpse of how to launch a game-changing startup. -Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe Kirkpatrick's amazing reporting details what happens when a hacker culture turns into a multi-billion-dollar firm. Mark Zuckerberg sought to maintain that hacker energy, and it 's fascinating to read what resulted. -Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail A thoughtful, even-handed analysis of the Web site's impact. . . . The Facebook Effect leaves you with a deep understanding of Facebook, its philosophies and, most startlingly, its power. -David Pogue, The New York Times Book Review The Facebook Effect is actually two books in one. One part is the exhaustively reported story of Facebook's founding and meteoric rise to near ubiquity; the other is a thoughtful analysis of its impact. -Ethan Gilsdorf, The Boston Globe Engrossing. . . . A detailed and scrupulously fair history of [Facebook]. -Rich Jaroslovsky, Bloomberg Businessweek Kirkpatrick gives the reader a detailed understanding of how the company grew from a 2004 Harvard dorm-room project into the world's second-most-visited site after Google. -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A fascinating book. -Dan Fletcher, Time Kirkpatrick's telling of the early days of Facebook is exciting. . . . His reporting skills are impressive. -Rachel Metz, Associated Press Fast-paced. . . . makes for gripping reading. -G. Pascal Zachary, The San Francisco Chronicle Kirkpatrick tells a gripping tale of how the company was created and came to such dominance. As someone who followed the story almost from day one, I was still enlightened, entertained and sometimes dumbfounded by the rich detail and juicy goings-on. -Don Tapscott, The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kirkpatrick does the best job yet of making sense of Facebook's founder, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg. . . . Is Zuckerberg a genius? A flake? A bit of both? The book explains how his many facets fit together. -George Anders, Forbes - From the Publisher This business history and biography of Facebook's founders, especially visionary Mark Zuckerberg, chronicles Facebook's surprising Ivy League beginnings in a Harvard University dormitory and how it spread to other college campuses and high school audiences before opening up to the general public. Despite Facebook's phenomenal growth, Zuckerberg claimed the goals were to increase networking and the sharing of information among individuals. Zuckerberg's vision, however, has made him and his fellow founding innovators multibillionaires, yielded Facebook competitive advantage and economies of scale, and made Zuckerberg one of the youngest CEOs of a company with such a large market capitalization. VERDICT This book, describing how Facebook kept evolving, the controversies it has faced, and what the future holds, was written with Zuckerberg's knowledge and is based on extensive interviews with him, so it is highly recommended for readers who want to understand better what drives entrepreneurial passion and risk taking. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10.]--Caroline Geck, MLS, MBA, Somerset, NJ - Library Journal