Deposition

Face the Book

Attention Deficit

TV Facemash

As recounted in the movie, The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg originally created a site called Facemash, in which viewers were shown pairs of photos of Harvard students and asked to pick which one was hotter. To update this concept, we'd like to use more familiar faces from TV.  So here's our TV Facemash.

Who's hotter?

Progressive Insurance	T-Mobile
Jess (Domino's Pizza)	Pat (Saturday Night Live)
Geico	Mucinex

Don't mess with my email!

So Facebook is going to revolutionize electronic communication? Again? The New York Times quotes Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as saying that, in The Times's words, e-mail was too formal, too slow and too cumbersome, especially for young people who had grown up communicating using online chat and text messaging systems.

Too formal?  Have you seen some of the email that ends up on various lists?  Even such staid groups as children's writers, cross-stitchers and cat lovers have email lists liberally peppered with obscenity, vitriol,  innuendo and just plain bad writing. The philosophical conundrum of the age is whether the anonymity of email causes all the mild-mannered Doctors Jekyll on the internet to post like Mr. Hyde.  Formality is not one's first impression.

Perhaps Mr. Zuckerberg is referring to the fact that e-mail encourages you to use actual words and sentences.  Granted this degree of formality seems excessive, but certainly not all e-mailers feel bound by these shackles. I personally receive many e-mails written in reckless disregard for convention or grammar (though admittedly a large percentage of these are proposing sexual hook-ups or various aids for same.)

Too cumbersome, especially for young people?  Evidently, Mr. Zuckerberg does not have parents, and has never seen any.  Young people do not find email cumbersome at all.  They can do it in their sleep.  It's the parents (and grandparents) who barely manage to muddle through.

There may be a case for "too slow" though.  Certainly the anxiety of waiting 30 or even 45 seconds for an e-mail message to cross 11 timezones is too onerous for anyone, let alone an impatient youth.  Surely instant messaging is a necessity in today's world.  Unfortunately, Facebook's track record does not suggest that whatever Mr. Zuckerberg has in mind will be anywhere near instant.

If you ask actual people what's wrong with email, they don't cite speed and convenience as problems.  Rather, the usual complaints are about privacy, security and spam prevention.  Not exactly Facebook's strengths.  Can you imagine sending a private message to your BFF, and having your boss comment and your mother "like" it?

The Social Network

I lose my geek bona fides if I don’t respond in some fashion to The Social Network, the new movie that claims to be about the origins of Facebook. I say claims because the movie really follows a typical  manipulative Hollywood plot: nerd loses girl, nerd starts $25 billion company to get even, nerd … well, I won’t spill too much, since obviously the ancient origins of Facebook are shrouded in mystery.

On the official site for the movie, the tag line is: A story about the founders of the social-networking website, Facebook. Not The story, as in what actually happened. Just A story. I think that about says it all.

You might think watching a bunch of brainiacs type at computers for two hours could get tedious, but this is broken up by thrilling action sequences of lawyers talking in conference rooms.  And yet, I have a number of problems with the film. Specifically,

1. The flashback approach is interesting, but considering that in the present we jump back and forth between two different lawsuits, the plot gets a bit scrambled. In one suit, founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin are co-defendants, in the other, Saverin is suing Zuckerberg.  Maybe a flashback blocker would help.
2. Although this movie is inspired by and devoted to nerd-dom, it can’t resist nerd-bashing. In one montage, campus parties abound with unbridled hedonism, while Zuckerberg and his cohorts sit hunched over their computers. The nerd idea of a good time, as shown later, is a hacking competition performed while the contestants drink shots.
3. I don’t know what former Harvard president Larry Summers is like in real life, but I somehow doubt he’s really Groucho Marx reincarnated (especially since Marx was alive when Summers was born).
4. Despite his fascination with making Web sites to facilitate relationships and coupling, Zuckerberg himself seems asexual. In fact, he seems completely emotionless  about everything. He just shuffles along while others hurl money at him. A slight trace of a grin after a hasty  sexual encounter is his only hint of libido, and that was apparently brought on by no less an aphrodisiac than a lecture by Bill Gates.

Just as the movie dodges any probing of Zuckerberg's personality or lack thereof, it also begs the central question: Why Facebook? Sean Parker, creator of Napster, is shown taking credit for single-handedly bringing down music industry giants like Tower Records, ignoring the influence of Apple's iTunes or the MP3 format in general.  But outside Hollywood, causes and effects are rarely that simple. Why did Facebook so completely eclipse earlier sites like Friendster and MySpace?  Perhaps the answers are too complex for a glib screenplay.  Maybe we have to resort to the anachronism of reading the book.  

Though the movie feels like Revenge of the Nerds for grown-ups  (okay, Revenge of the Nerds for anyone), ultimately, it is a morality play, preaching that success leads to sex, drugs, and home repair. Heck, for a few billion dollars, I’ll take that chance.