The Facebook Effect Book Summary

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Key Insights

Facebook made a major impact on the world of social media. 

And, it’s not just a platform for people to communicate, it’s a business success story.

It has changed how we interact and share with people throughout the world. 

“Facebook also has a fundamental characteristic that has proven key to its appeal in country after country—you only see friends there.”- David Kirkpatrick 

In the book, “The Facebook Effect” by David Kirkpatrick, you will learn how Facebook created technological change and how it affects you.

Before Facebook

Before Facebook, there were other social media sites including WELL, AOL, and Friendster. 

The concept of social media started in 1985. But, the design was a little different. You could chat with people in the community via threads, online bulletin boards, and chat rooms. 

Social media began developing fast because of the new technology creators were experimenting with. This led to users being able to create unique profiles for themselves and groups that could remain private and exclusive. 

Classmates.com was a popular site that was similar to Facebook which allowed you to find people you went to school with. 

Old-school social media was really more of a virtual community. Social media is defined as an online platform that allows you to create a profile, establish a friend’s list, and make new connections. 

And, by using this definition, Sixdegrees.com was the first social media site to come about. Sixdegrees.com worked by connecting people based on people on their friend’s lists as well as their interests. It allowed you to search for someone on the search bar, which was something new to the scene at the time.

In 2002, the social media platform Friendster launched and it was the first site that allowed you to add a profile picture. 

Many sites followed suit including Myspace, LinkedIn, and Spoke. 

But, even though the market was full of competition, Facebook became a success almost instantly.

The Origins of Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg always was a lover of creating and developing. In early 2004, he started a project in his Harvard college dorm called “Thefacebook.” It was named after college “face books” which was essentially a list of all students with a picture and their class listed as well. At first, this project was private to Harvard students. But, Zuckerberg had ideas for its expansion.

Thefacebook went live on February 4th, 2004. In the first four days, 650 Harvard students joined the site. And, in only three weeks 6,000 students had profiles on the site. 

The site expanded to 34 schools and by May it had over 100,000 users. Even Mark Zuckerberg didn’t expect that type of success. 

In June 2004, Zuckerberg was approached and offered a whopping 10 million for the site, but Zuckerberg refused and wanted to take his site farther. 

In September 2005, “Thefacebook” became “Facebook.” This was advice that was given personally to Zuckerberg by Sean Parker, the owner of Napster.

Shortly after the name change, the site became international and spread to schools worldwide. 

The following year, Facebook became open to non-students as well. 

“In mid-2008 the word Facebook passed sex in frequency as a search term...

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