Smith on Zuckerberg

Even though I am not a member of Facebook, I have, oddly, devoted some spare time lately reading and viewing chronicles of its origins. A few months ago, I read The Facebook Effect, a book detailing founder Zuckerberg's development and early years with thefacebook.com. The book also delved into the history of social networking at large, and provided a crash course in venture capitalism.

Next, we saw the movie. You know the one. The highly fictionalized "The Social Network," by none other than Aaron Sorkin. I realize there are mixed emotions about Sorkin, but I appreciate his work. It's witty, thoughtful and entertaining, and "The Social Network" is not a departure from his usual formula. While he presumably took many creative liberties, he tackled the issue of intellectual property ownership in a straightforward way.

Social networks have been evolving since the late 90's, and one very real hurdle was the inability to transmit photographs electronically. Can we even remember a time when that was a hurdle? When digital cameras were not thoroughly ubiquitous? When we did not have a camera, of some shape, form or fashion with us at all times? It reminds me of Zan McQuade's post entitled "You Couldn't Even E-mail Pictures Uphill Both Ways".

During this stalled period, when we were all still handling photographs (one early site actually contemplated having users mail photographs, which would be scanned by staff, to use as profile pictures), various formulae (i.e., code) were being developed, shared and likely, yes, stolen.

Anyrate, I ran across this NYT article a few weeks ago wherein another book (The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich)discusses the Zuckerberg crowd. I read the article but not the book, as I am Facebook fatigued. As compelling as the story is, and, as likely as it is that Zuckerberg is, indeed, the next Jobs or Gates, I couldn't read another word.

That is, until I saw Zadie Smith's discussion of "The Social Network" and the book, You Are Not a Gadget: a Manifesto by Jaron Lanier. I was compelled to read. Here's the article, in case you missed it.