Facebook: At the Movies with the Winklevosses "It's a little surreal," says Cameron Winklevoss, standing outside the Sony (SNE) office building in midtown Manhattan with his twin brother, Tyler. "Like hearing your voice on an answering machine." The Winklevoss brothers have just joined a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter for a screening of David Fincher's taut and suspenseful film The Social Network, which opens on Oct. 1. The Winklevosses, strapping Olympic rowers who look exactly alike, are fairly surreal offscreen, too. Like everyone else in the movie, the picture of the Winklevosses that emerges from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's acid-tipped pen is not flattering: They are portrayed as pampered athletes with no high-tech chops who come up with the kernel of a business, then do little more than act distraught when Zuckerberg fleshes out the idea and makes it his own. What's True, According to Them As the twins cab to a restaurant, zipping past billboards for the film with actor Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, they pick a few nits.
[2010] 18 new ways Mark Zuckerberg rules social networking Screenwriter says Facebook movie is not ‘a punch in the face’ to Zuckerberg The New Yorker just published a lengthy profile of Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a fun, thorough piece, one that lives up to the subtitle “Mark Zuckerberg opens up” — though for readers who have been following Facebook there probably isn’t much new from Zuckerberg himself. The most interesting quotes actually come from Aaron Sorkin, writer of The Social Network, the movie about Facebook’s early days that’s scheduled to open on October 1. The film is based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, an unflattering portrayal of Zuckerberg that was written without Facebook’s cooperation. The movie is expected to be largely critical towards Zuckerberg and his company. But Sorkin said it wasn’t intended as a mean-spirited takedown — instead, Zuckerberg is mostly the film’s “antihero,” then in the last five minutes becomes its “tragic hero.” VB's working with marketing expert Scott Brinker to understand the new digital marketing organization.
[2010] Why did Columbia's Campus Network lose out to Harvard's Facebook? - By Christopher Beam In a parallel universe, there is a blockbuster movie coming out this weekend about a Web site that changed the world. It's called The Social Network. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as the site's wunderkind creator. It features wealth and drama and Ivy League shenanigans. But it's not about Facebook. As The Social Network dramatizes, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook after allegedly backing out of a commitment to work on another networking site, Harvard Connection. "If you talk to Mark, he'll be the first to tell you he thought CU Community was the biggest competition that Facebook ever had," says Goldberg, now 26 years old and living in New York City. Goldberg got the idea for Campus Network in 2003, during his freshman year at Columbia's school of engineering. On Feb. 4, Facebook launched. As of early 2004, Goldberg's social network was a lot more advanced than Mark Zuckerberg's. That spring, Goldberg started instant messaging with Mark Zuckerberg. Goldberg said no, thanks.
"Les nerds représentent aujourd'hui une contre-culture acceptable" Benjamin Nudgent est journaliste et écrivain. Il est notamment l'auteur d'American nerd : the story of my people (non traduit en français), essai de référence sur la contre-culture nerd aux Etats-Unis, née du cliché de l'intellectuel asocial, adepte des nouvelles technologies. Selon lui, The Social Network marque un tournant dans la manière dont les nerds sont représentés dans les médias grands publics. Dans The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg est décrit comme un asocial passionné par l'informatique. Son personnage est bien un nerd, mais pas parce qu'il est un exclu passionné par les ordinateurs. La combinaison de sa rationalité et de sa capacité à exploiter l'irrationalité des autres est la source de son isolement et de son désespoir, mais aussi la source de son génie. Oui, c'est une nouveauté. Les personnages de nerds, au cinéma ou dans les séries télévisées, sont souvent très caricaturaux. La série Freaks and Geeks est le meilleur portrait de nerds qu'Hollywood ait produit.
[2010] How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today Remember three years ago, when Microsoft paid a quarter-billion dollars for 1.6% of Facebook and the exclusive right to run banner ads across Facebook.com? Tell the truth, how many of you thought that was a killer business decision? I can’t say I did at the time. But as that deal is about to expire in 2011, Facebook’s status as a revenue juggernaut is rarely questioned any more. In fact, I have been mulling over data from both companies, and I’m ready to declare in public my belief that Facebook will be bigger in five years than Google is right now, barring some drastic action or accident. What do I mean by bigger? Google’s 2010 revenues will be $28 billion, give or take a billion. Facebook has figured out its business model, and wants to keep it out of the public eye as long as possible. Facebook’s second-mover advantage affords the company the luxury of offering both types of Internet money-making product: Advertising and Commerce. But it’s not just Madison Avenue. Games. Inbox.
The Social Network/Fight Club : films miroirs Bien qu'écrit par Aaron Sorkin (créateur de la série A la Maison Blanche), The Social Network entretient plusieurs échos thématiques avec la filmographie de David Fincher. Le film du cinéaste dont les enjeux se rapprochent le plus de ceux de The Social Network s'avère ainsi être Fight Club (1999), adaptation du roman éponyme de Chuck Palahniuk. Les deux longs métrages traitent en effet d'une invention dont l'influence se propage à grande vitesse, si bien que ses créateurs finissent par s'entre-déchirer : d'un côté les fight clubs, groupes de boxe clandestins qui se transforment en projet de destruction anti-capitaliste; de l'autre Facebook, réseau social universitaire qui s'infiltre progressivement dans les foyers du monde entier. - Deux anarchistes Mark Zuckerberg possède un « instinct anarchiste ». - Deux époques différentes Produits d'époques différentes, le narrateur de Fight Club et Mark Zuckerberg ne sont pas animés des mêmes objectifs. - Deux tragédies sentimentales
[2010] Is your private phone number on Facebook? Probably. And so are your friends' | Technology If you have a friend on Facebook who has used the iPhone app version to access the site, then it's very possible that your private phone numbers - and those of lots of your and their friends - are on the site. The reason: Facebook's "Contact Sync" feature, which synchronises your friends' Facebook profile pictures with the contacts in your phone. Except that it doesn't do that on your phone. Oh no. Instead, what What Facebook's app does it that it imports all the names and phone numbers you have on your (smart)phone, uploads them to Facebook's Phonebook app (got a Facebook account? Pause for a moment and go and look at it. Update: that's the implication of "all contacts from your device... will be sent to Facebook and be subject to Facebook's Privacy Policy". The implications are huge, and extremely worrying. Update: Facebook says, in a statement: "Facebook never shares personally identifiable information with third parties – advertisers are only given anonymised and aggregated data."
Mark Zuckerberg et autres héros vivants du cinéma Voilà longtemps que le biopic (film biographique) est devenu un genre cinématographique à part entière, aux multiples émules - notamment français. Si les Gandhi, Johnny Cash et autres Jacques Mesrine ont eu droit à des films après leur mort, il est toujours plus troublant de voir un biopic consacré à une personne vivante.The Social Network (sortie mercredi prochain en France), qui se penche sur la création de Facebook par Mark Zuckerberg, tranche encore davantage avec les habitudes, puisque le film s'intéresse à un homme seulement âgé d'une vingtaine d'années au moment des faits (26 ans aujourd'hui). Il est également rare que le cinéma se passionne pour des entrepreneurs milliardaires contemporains (les quinquagénaires Bill Gates et Richard Branson n'ont ainsi pas eu droit à leurs biographies filmées). Jusqu'ici, les biopics sur des personnes vivantes se divisaient essentiellement en trois catégories de héros, facilement identifiables. - Le chanteur vivant - L'homme politique vivant
[2010] Love Google. Hate Facebook. Here’s Why | Epicenter Recently, I’ve been working on a big research project. Yesterday, I had Delicious links, PDFs, spreadsheets and Word documents open on my desktop when I came across a couple of useful presentations on Scribd. I’ll have them, I thought. Nudging is a risky business. Facebook? Specifically, my business. Nudging is the name given by the authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein to describe the art of influencing user behavior by presenting options in specific ways. Last month, TechCrunch spotted a good example. Previously, Facebook forced users to choose between Confirm and Ignore. So what? Nothing. Or is it? Some companies do it less than others. Aggressive nudging causes problems. Something like this, I suspect, happened to Windows during the past decade as Microsoft struggled to cope with the emergence of the web. Continue reading …