The following is a book review by Stephen Burns.
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World
We are still at the infancy stage of the Internet transforming into the Social Internet. As investors wait for this company to go public for a chance to invest, I believe this book, The Facebook Effect captures the story as well as any other book concerning this subject. The author, David Kirkpatrick, convinces me that Facebook’s IPO may end up making Google look like a lemonade stand in comparison.
People use Google to find a web destination, Facebook is the destination for its users. Google (GOOG) has to try to covertly figure out how to target customers for advertisers while customers give Facebook the needed information. This is an amazing time we live in and can not imagine a scenario where a Facebook IPO does not double in the first year and is not the most sought after stock for fund managers, just as Google was in the past.
Here is the book that tells the first chapter of the history of this fascinating company. Not only do I think this book is worthy of five stars, but it is also one of my favorite books I have read out of the thousand in my personal library.
This book has many dynamics. On the surface it is the story of how Mark Zuckerberg created the company Thefacebook (the original name) at Harvard and how it survived, thrived, and then became a worldwide phenomenon. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The story of Mark Zuckerberg is one of the greatest entrepreneurial stories in history, on par with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. As history plays out he could go down as a genius at the level of Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. As many of these great men did, he started with only his passion and his intelligence. He created Thefacebook by writing the code mostly himself and renting a $35 server. These are very humble beginnings. He created an online facebook like the hard copy ones that colleges gave out to freshmen each year. However, he made it a living one online, where the pictures could be updated. Friends could then see each others profiles, and also who had the same classes with them. It was an instant sensation. He then rolled it out…
