The final part of Kirkpatrick's work begins by giving the reader the sense that Zuckerberg and friends imagine(d) that Facebook would serve as a much broader tool than they had originally thought. The first chapter of this last section is titled, "The Platform", already giving the reader the sense that Facebook may, or maybe already partially has, evolve into something larger. The platform that Kirkpatrick speaks of is one similar to Microsoft Windows, or Apple Macintosh: a fully functioning operating system in which others can build off and manipulate. Kirkpatrick tells us of Zuckerberg's vision; "He wanted to do for the Web what Gates did for the personal computer: create a standard software infrastructure that made it easier to build applications-- this time, applications that had a social component" (217). This point is again reiterated by Zuckerberg himself: "We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system, so you can run full applications" (217). This concept held by Zuckerberg is crucial in understanding the gravity of Facebook on everyday life, and what its plans are for the future. Zuck's claim that he wants Facebook to become an operating system is a very bold one indeed, comparing his social interaction website to the system that made it possible for people to actually be able to use personal computers, Microsoft Windows. However far-fetched and outlandish-like Zuckerberg's imagination may seem, his idea is already in motion today. These applications he talks about are used by virtually everybody who uses Facebook itself. There are the pictures and events app that Facebook itself created, but there are also the Farmvilles and the Mafia Wars. Apps such as Farmville and Mafia Wars are created by third-parties, mostly big software companies that have uploaded these apps to Facebook's system. Already Zuck's idea is in play; these companies are adding on, or building upon, an already pre-existing system, just as software companies create programs and games to add on to systems such as Windows and Mac. While Facebook is not currently the basis for all socially-related applications, that may very well be the case soon enough. Just as Windows is our way to utilize gaming and the internet, Facebook will be our outlet for all social interactions via the worldwide web. The site would dominate all activity on the internet, as almost everything would be built upon the already existing social system. In layman's words, one would not be able to escape Facebook if he wanted to interact with other human beings on the internet, or so is the theoretical concept of Zuck's idea of broadening Facebook.
To further the idea of the expansion of Facebook, the Nielsen Company Research Firm claimed that, "Time spent on social networks by Internet users worldwide had for the first time exceeded the amount of time Internet users spent on email" (274). As part of the general public, almost all of us in the class have a Facebook account, and almost all of us log in to the site almost daily. Already Facebook defines most people's activity on the web, and the site is only going foward. Kirkpatrick writes, "Facebook is changing our notion of community, both at the neighborhood level and the planetary one. It may help us move back toward a kind of intimacy that the ever-quickening pace of modern life has drawn us away from" (332). This quote really scares me. The author, who seems to have immense knowledge of Facebook, maintains the thought that the site will actually help society move backwards in the sense of local community interaction. The fact that people are online, isolated by themselves on the computer just to interact with one another demonstrates the concept that people are growing farther apart on a physical level, despite what one computer screen may show, or may not show. Facebook is just another part of Postman's idea of the "Technopoly". We are moving into a technologically dominated era, in which most of life will revolve around pieces of technology instead of it being revolved around each other. The future is definitely one that I remain skeptical about.
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