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The Father of Social Networking
7/22/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's the stuff of dotcom legend. Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends hack into the university's photo ID database and create a site for students to rate and/or berate their classmates' pictures. Since Facebook's launch in 2004, it's become a cultural phenomenon that's outgrown its Ivy League origins, into middle America and started to expand into countries around the world. NEWSWEEK's Dan Lyons spoke with Zuckerberg about Facebook's rapid growth, how it's reshaped how we think about privacy and whether the site can get too big for its own good. Excerpts:
Facebook at Age Five
Kurt Soller 7/22/2009 12:00:00 AM
As we spent our first year at college, all of my classmates became Facebook guinea pigs; we were the first generation that would go through college (and the rest of our lives) with the site in our bookmarks. Social networking was as new to us as a frat party, a discussion section or a telephone call home. But we learned quickly. By the end of freshman year, I had stopped visiting each of the networks I had signed up for the year before because they were courting a demographic different than my own: Friendster was for old people (which, at the time, meant thirtysomethings); hi5 was for people in Europe, or Canada, or somewhere foreign; MySpace was for... well, we all know where Tila Tequila comes from.
Is Your Boss on Twitter?
6/25/2009 12:00:00 AM
A public relations executive recently evaluated the number of Fortune 100 CEOs who had presences on social network sites including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and online information site Wikipedia. Almost none of the chief executives were involved with the Internet destinations, which should not have been a surprise to anyone with sense. The question raised by the PR person is why executives do such a poor job managing their images online. A better question is why a CEO would want to be involved with the websites at all.
The Perils of Zoosk
Raina Kelley 6/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
Back in my dating days, I liked to keep a firewall between my friends and my dates. It was just too complicated to combine the two–in my experience, it's something akin to introducing an alligator to a wildebeest—someone's going to get killed and it could be me. The first interaction between the two was carefully vetted before it happened—a crowded, noisy, neutral spot, no extended trips down memory lane and no photos.
TECHNOLOGY
Walking the Cyberbeat
Nick Summers 5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's just before lunchtime in the sunny, high-tech headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif., and Simon Axten is cuing up some porn. A photo of a young couple sloppily making out pops onscreen. It's gross, but not against the rules, so Axten punches a key to judge the image appropriate. Next up: a young woman in panties only, covering her breasts with her hands. "That's pretty close," Axten says, pondering the image. There's nothing arbitrary about his judgments: at Facebook, they have developed semiformal policies like the Fully Exposed Butt Rule, the Crack Rule and the Nipple Rule. In this photo there's no visible areola, he decides, so it stays. The next photo is a male clad only in a black thong and angel wings. Utterly nonplussed, Axten OKs the picture. After delivering a verdict on 75 of the 438,848 outstanding photos flagged by Facebook users—buff guy soaping up in the shower (OK); girl blowing an epic cloud of pot smoke (he deletes it); an underage user drinking from two liquor bottles at once (ditto)—Axten is off to a meeting. It's just another day at the office of the world's fastest-growing social-networking site.
It Feels Like Activism
Evgeny Morozov
It has happened to all of us: a friend forwards an e-mail urging you to sign an online petition or join a Facebook group for some noble cause like saving Darfur or stopping deforestation. Most of us, out of respect for the friend or because we agree with the cause, click ACCEPT or AGREE, often without giving the issue much thought. After all, it can't hurt, can it?