Facebook (pt. 2)

In reading the second part of "The Facebook Effect" the chapters focus on the business aspect of owning a new company and provides a lot of insight into the process of getting investors. It was actually very enjoyable to see this perspective of how Facebook got started and I found it interesting how a 20 year old was handling being in serious conversations with people double his age and much more experienced then him. Also, there was a lot of information in these chapters that documented where Facebook came from and how it developed into the best social networking site in our lives today. Hearing Graham (of the Washington Post) talk about the similarities between what Facebook allows students to do in regards to leaving comments on pictures/posts and the ledgers that contained articles of the Harvard Crimson shows that many of the ideas that created Facebook weren't necessarily new, just tweaked and put on the internet for a much easier platform to gain many followers. The Washington Post's initial investment offers opened my eyes to the different approaches one could take while shopping a company around for investors. The fact that their plan focused more on the long-term development of the site and not the "sell fast" mentality seems to be what influenced Zuckerberg the most for planning Facebook's future. This approach is more risky because the company has to overcome many obstacles and establish a dominance, but the pay-off at the end is much bigger than the quicker approach. The fact that Viacom took an interest and wanted to merge Facebook with Mtv.com displays the endless possibilities and different roads the website could have went down. In the end, Zuckerberg goes with Accel and obviously the decision pays off for him. The rest of the chapters document the development of Facebook (which as a user I found awesome since I experienced these developments myself) and the development of Zuckerberg as a CEO. Interestingly enough, the struggle of trying to keep Facebook closed off to only students is something that I tend to forget ever existed. The eventual switch has made the website one of the main tools for family/friends keeping in touch no matter where they currently are in the world. Also, it was funny that pictures were not "unlimited" or even a big part of Facebook in the beginning since now that is why many people love the website so much.