The Social Network movie

Paul in Cannon Beach

This is a little off topic but has anyone seen the movie "The Social Network"? Its the story of Facebook's rise to success and the various intrigues along the way. I have only seen a few clips but it looks fascinating.

Much of the movie dialogue comes straight from court documents related to a case where one of the original members of FB sued Mark Zuckerberg (at least I think thats an accurate summary).

The tagline of the movie is something to the effect "You don't make 1,000,000 friends without making a few enemies".

ACU Frank

I haven't seen it, and probably won't. I was following it pretty closely as it happened, and I guess I feel like I've already "seen" it.

Paul in Cannon Beach

If I recall, you made the same statement about the Civil War movie "Glory".

ACU Frank

Yeah... didn't see that one either.

Of course, I have the advantage of being able to discern movies from real life. Remember how depressed you were after we told you [I]2001: A Space Odessey[/I] wasn't a recent documentary?

Paul in Cannon Beach

Touche.

So you followed the Mark Zuckerberg story while it was happening? How and why?

ACU Frank

I listen to a lot of tech-oriented podcasts. (Yes... I'm that guy.) Several years ago, when Facebook was still significantly smaller than MySpace, Zuckerberg was already a popular topic with podcasters due to his personality quirks and awkwardness in interviews. I followed the Zuckerberg saga well before I even thought of signing up for Facebook, just because it was such a trainwreck of weird accusations, crazy statements, and loads of cash.

Keep in mind, these events aren't ancient history - they initial lawsuit and the subsequent refilings and countersuits have all been in the past six years.

By the way, Zuckerberg's legendary interview meltdown on stage at SXSW has been described as the first time a disaster was live-tweeted. It also virtually destroyed the career of the interviewer, Sarah Lacy (not to be confused with Sarah Lane, who is still cool). Youtube it if you get a chance.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I wasn't really aware of any of it until recently. I love a good meltdown so I'll have to watch that on Youtube.

Speaking of Myspace, I think a movie or documentary that chronicled the rise and fall of Myspace would be pretty good.

KSR6450

Friend saw it and said it was really good. Of course he went to a Sunday matinee, not sure if it was good enough for full price, lol.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I actually watched most of it last week. It happened to be streaming on one of the sites I visit to watch sports online. It was excellent. Well acted and very smart. It certainly isnt a big budget blockbuster so you could enjoy it on DVD as easily as in the theater.

Frank - I found the Zuckerburg interview at SXSW but didnt see a meltdown. I just saw some odd behavior by the interviewer. Who melted down and when?

Sharon McKnight SPHR

I've not seen the movie, though I've been curious about it. Also out of curiosity, just how does Facebook make it's money? They don't charge "firiends" and I've not seen very many ads. Do they make a lot off of the games that are available?

Sharon

PS: I think I'll wait to see the movie on pay-per-view.

Paul in Cannon Beach

I think FB has heavy advertising profits. We advertise our company on FB because you can tailor your ad to an extremely specific demographic.

Some of FB's value may simply rest in how it (currently) dominates the internet. As you may have noticed in commercials lately, some companies are directing people to their FB pages instead of their corporate websites.