This week’s class consisted of three articles and two videos. This week’s class was a bit different as we just watched a recording. In The Social Network which is about Mark Zuckerberg’s start creating Facebook. The creation and early days of the social networking website Facebook are portrayed as told by flashbacks through deposition proceedings for two parallel lawsuits. Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin were once best friends-officially identified as co-founders of the website. Zuckerberg, who showed a streak of arrogance on an online blog about his ex-girlfriend and a website he developed to allow its users to rate the hotness factor of girls on campus, was asked by fellow Harvardites, wealthy twins Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, and their friend Divya Narendra, to enter into an agreement specifically for Harvard to develop a social networking website. Zuckerberg consented. Instead, Zuckerberg wanted to create his own website with financing from his friend Saverin without telling the “Winklevi” (as he calls the twins) and Narendra. The assertion by Zuckerberg was that in his work he never used a line of code given by the three. When “the Facebook” started to flourish as it was then called, the twins and Narendra had to find out what to do to reclaim what they believed in their intellectual property without having to sue, because that’s not what Harvardites do gentlemanly. 

Zuckerberg and Saverin started to have a difference of opinion as the site was taken to more and more university campuses: Saverin wanted to sell ad space to raise revenue (as he was the sole financier of the website and had a profit mindset focused on being an economics major), while Zuckerberg, never interested in profits, did not want to go that route as the advertising would make the site lose interest. The platform attracted the attention of Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, whose own dot-com life had its spectacular ups and downs. As Parker incorporated himself into the life of Facebook (much to the chagrin of Saverin) and as Zuckerberg began gradually to side with Parker, Saverin slowly began to be phased out of both the personal and professional life of Zuckerberg. Initially, Saverin invested $1,000 to start the business and has been investing and supplying the business with funds to get it up and running. When Saverin sees that Parker, who Saverin thinks is bad news, has strongly affected Zuckerberg, he freezes the bank account and the money. Zuckerberg then finds a businessman, Peter Theil, who is making a $500,000 investment. Saverin was in NYC trying to win sponsorship deals that Zuckerberg and Parker did not see as a good course for the venture. For Facebook, he and Zuckerberg saw something larger, which finally became just” Facebook “on Parker’s suggestion. When Saverin returned from NYC the last time, he learned that his company shares were reduced to .03 percent and Saverin was outraged. Zuckerberg finally ended up settling with the brothers Saverin and Winklevoss. One million members just broke Facebook. Facebook is estimated at US$ 25 billion, making Zuckerberg the world’s youngest billionaire.

Moving on to our article, Why People Get Annoyed at Celebrities on Kickstarters, we read about why a filmmaker was asking for donations on Kickstarter. In this article, we read and come more to an understanding that this director can’t pull $5.5 million out of his pocket to fund this. We can forget that while people crave to be a celebrity it’s not all about the money. “In other words, if people think you have a lot of money, they’re going to ask why you’re asking them for more. There always will be a backlash against anyone who seems like they’re reverse-Robin-Hooding a situation.” I believe it depends on the person, they either wish for fame and money or simply just to be recognized for their works. I can honestly wish there were more people in it for the recognition but sadly that is not the case. Those who do it to show their work to the world are the ones we should be supporting. Rather than supporting those in it just for the money, we should change our view and really ask ourselves, is this someone to look up to?

Have you noticed Facebook’s ever changing algorithm? What about celebrities only posting for brand deals? Who do you know just trying to get their work recognized?

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