"The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick
I recently finished reading "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick and highly recommend it. Below are a few interesting quotes that I think offer some insights, especially for news organizations.
"Facebook is founded on a radical social premise--that an inevitable enveloping transparency will overtake modern life. But through strength of conviction, consistency, and strategic flexibility, Zuckerberg has been able to keep Facebook true to this premise despite the pressures that have come as it grows toward 500 million users. To understand Facebook's history you must understand Zuckerberg's views about what at Facebook they call 'radical transparency.'" (pg. 200)
"..the rationale Zuckerberg gave internally for the News feed: 'A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.' Now your every move on Facebook might become news for your friends." (pg. 296)
"So how do traditional media organizations fit into this new personcentric information architecture? Paradoxically, if they are to most benefit from the Facebook environment they have to learn to function within it as if they were individuals. The playing field has been leveled by the site's neutral way of treating all messages as similar. Any media company, newspaper, or TV station can create its own page on Facebook. But then it faces the same mandate to generate interesting, relevant, and useful messages that an individual does." (pg. 297)
