David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect, pages 107-214

The second portion of Kirkpatrick's account of the rise of Facebook focuses heavily on Thefacebook's rise to a real company; the beginning of which documents various companies inquiring into possibly investing in the company (107-118). Thefacebook eventually settled with Silicon Valley VC, Accel: much of the handling of possible investors was done by Sean Parker, who eventually committed the Company to Accel (118). Once Thefacebook landed money, their restrictions were nonexistent, and so the company began to have room to prosper. However, Kirkpatrick tells the reader, "[Parker's] willful disregard for business conventions was as thorough as Zuckerberg's ignorance of them" (128). He also states that, "For all their vision, creativity, and commitment, they retained the mind-set of college kids. They knew next to nothing about how to organize a business" (128). I find it remarkable that Zuckerberg, the brilliant founder of Thefacebook, was almost helpless as to actually run the company. I feel that Zuckerberg, with all of his genius and IT skills, happened to come across one of the most important inventions of our decade, and the rest was taken care of by others- more business orientated peoples who had very little to do with actual development of the idea. This shows that breakthroughs, especially technological breakthroughs (as technology is clearly the way in which society is headed, if its not already defined by the persistent use of technology), are valued among one of the most crucial contributions to both American life, and the culture and economy of which it is based.

It is also important to note the ramifications of using Facebook, and what software is embedded in the programs coding that can target user's privacy; Kirkpatrick informs the reader of "cookies", or pieces of software that are embedded in web browsers. He says, "They can know, for example, you have been to the kinds of sites a twenty-year-old girl might go to, or that you have shopped for pop music online" (Kirkpatrick 142). The author relates these "cookies" to advertisement targeting that appeared on Facebook, much to the help of Dustin Moskovitz, Zuckerberg's right hand man. This approach to online advertising is now prevalent on almost every website in which you register a username for, solidifying it's role in everyday use of the internet. It would be almost impossible for someone, take you or me, to use the internet and not have this method of advertising appear on the margins of our Firefox browser as we surf the web's almost endless waves.