每部电影一般都有一个官方网站，但并不是每个网站都能成为一部电影。然而，Facebook与其他网站不同，6年半前其创建者Mark Zuckerberg在自己的宿舍中开始了该网站的运营，现在Facebook在全球拥有5亿多活跃用户，这可能是历史上发展最快的公司。而现在，Facebook将以自己的成功上演一部激动人心的电影”The Social Network”，该电影将于10月1日上映。

Mark Zuckerberg

1，Facebook曾只面向大学生用户

当Zuckerberg在2004年的春天开始运营Facebook时，该网站仅仅面向Zuckerberg的同学，但这中情况只持续了短短的几个月。之后在2004年底Facebook开始向所有拥有email的大学生开发；然后2005年则开始面向高中生开放，到了2006年Facebook网站面向所有成年人开放。尽管Facebook的用户基础以年轻人为主，但现在Facebook网站1亿3400万的美国用户中有三分之二的用户年龄超过26岁。在美国以外的地区，Facebook网站增长最快的用户群是中年女性。

渐渐地，Facebook成为多个国家社交生活的主要集散地，不分年龄，大部分相与朋友保持联系的人群逐渐加入Facebook。以我们的调查为例，我发现如今在许多意大利知识分子或哥伦比亚商人中Facebook信息正在逐渐取代email。而Facebook的第三大用户国印度尼西亚中这一数据更为惊人：该国家3000万的网络用户中有2780万使用Facebook社交网站。

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2，Facebook不断调整

Zuckerberg不断地对Facebook的功能和界面进行调整，其中部分调整还减弱了玩家对个人档案的控制。以去年年底的事件为例，当时Facebook用户的朋友列表被公之于众，玩家对Facebook的这一行为发出了强烈抗议，最后在今年Facebook取消了这一调整。

公司评论家假设Facebook网站的所有变动调整主要是受到了利益的驱使——曝光玩家的资料有利于广告商更精确的找到广告目标。然而媒体对Zuckerberg的多次访问则否认了这一看法。首先，Zuckerberg并不将广告利润看成Facebook的终极奋斗目标，这些广告利润主要是为Facebook网站开发新的服务买单（如果Zuckerberg的目的仅在于短期的经济利益，那么他就不会拒绝2007年微软提出的收购请求：当年微软提出向年仅23岁的Zuckerberg提议以40亿美元以买下Zuckerberg的公司股份，但他拒绝了这一交易。）

比起企业家，Zuckerberg更愿意将自己称为社交革命者，他用自己的公司作为杠杠来调整世界社交网络。“令世界更加开放，联系更加紧密”是该公司的宗旨。但对于Zuckerberg而言，这更像一个魔咒，他坚信Facebook网站将为来自世界各地的人们提供了一个公共平台。通过这一平台，他希望每个人变成更为合格的公民。因此，Facebook并不考虑短期利益，而是将其重心放在研究如何面向更多的用户，开发更为多样化的服务。该公司的员工指出“ubiquity普遍存在”才是Facebook公司持之以恒的奋斗目标。

Zuckerberg对该网站的不断发展调整也来自于对这一未来的憧憬。在与Zuckerberg的多次交流中，我们不难发现Zuckerberg的这种想法，他认为Facebook一旦止步不前，那么社交网络领域就会出现各种小而敏捷的竞争对手抢走自己的“午餐”——这就好比当初的Facebook。

3，Facebook用户强烈抗议曝光隐私

很多人对社交网站用户都秉持上述看法。然而，在Facebook一次又一次掀起的隐私争议中，行动往往比语言更能说明事实。其中最大的一次隐私争议事件发生在2006年9月，当时Facebook向广大用户介绍News Feed新功能：该功能将显示用户与其所有朋友的最新信息。尽管一开始10%的Facebook用户抗议了这一新功能，但很快地，News Feed成为Facebook网站最受欢迎的新功能。

社交网站用户并不注重隐私的另一个证据则在于很多Facebook会接受陌生人交友请求的事实。这或许是处于一种竞争心里。受其驱使，Facebook用户都希望拥有比别人更多朋友。而还有一些人则数出于礼貌，接受了陌生人的交友请求。

但是在社交网站Facebook中与某人交“朋友”往往意味着向他提供自己的个人资料。在安全公司Sophos的某次实验中，Facebook的用户们会受到一位名叫Freddi Staur的交友请求：这位Freddi Staur的个人档案中一片空白，仅有一张绿色塑料青蛙的图片。但是，41%的Facebook用户所接受了这个交友请求。

4，Zuckerberg窃取了哈佛校友的Facebook创意

Zuckerberg是否真的窃取了校友的创意，成立了Facebook社交网站是这部电影的中心问题。在Ben Mezrich的原著《The Accidental Billionaires》中，Zuckerberg曾为其学长工作过一段日子，当时他们致力于开发一款称为Harvard Connection的在线社交网络（之后重命名为ConnectU）。但之后Zuckerberg发布了自己的网站，并在一开始命名为Thefacebook。

这群学长觉得受到背叛，并向Zuckerberg发起法律诉讼，控告其窃取创意。对此，Zuckerberg主张庭外和解，并向学长们支付了上百万美元的赔款。

此时，我们需要补充一些背景知识。当时Zuckerberg和他的学长们都是受到了已经开始运营的某些服务的影响，其中就包括2003年3月开始运营的Friendster。当时，各种校园社交网站层出不穷，包括耶鲁大学、哥伦比亚大学和贝勒大学。更早之前，斯坦福大学就在2001年发售了一款颇为复杂的社交网络服务。

因此，也许Zuckerberg从Harvard Connection借用了某些创意，但实际上这些创意早已经被诸如Friendster、Club Nexus等网站“借用”。

5，Facebook很快将成为Friendster和MySpace的接班人

Friendster的创办者称其主要创办动机是想帮人们取得约会机会，而2003年8月开始运营的MySpace也是出于类似动机。于他们不同，Facebook社交网站则希望成为一个更为广泛引用的交流工具。因此Friendster和MySpace并不会变得Facebook一样复杂，其管理层也不会行程类似与Facebook的竞争观。

因此，Friendster和MySpace的规模也无法与Facebook相比拟。现在，Facebook是迄今为止用户使用时间最长的网络服务，是世界上最大的照片 储藏室。

这一切都昭示这Facebook将不仅仅是一种时尚。它或许将被其他社交网络所取代，但其竞争对手必将付出一场苦战。

Movies often have Web sites, but it’s not so often that Web sites have movies. Facebook, of course, is not just any Web site; in the 6 1/2 years since founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg started the social networking service in his Harvard dorm room, it has acquired 500 million active users  worldwide. It may be the fastest-growing company in history. And now, yes, it is the inspiration for a movie, “The Social Network,” opening Oct. 1. Even before Hollywood got involved, however, Facebook was the subject of quite a bit of lore — not all of it true.

1. Facebook is used mostly by college kids.

When Zuckerberg started Facebook in the spring of 2004, it was just for his classmates — but that chapter lasted only a matter of months. The site opened to students with e-mail addresses from other colleges later that year, to high schoolers in 2005 and to all adults in 2006. While Facebook’s base still skews young, about two-thirds of its 134 million American members are older than 26. Outside the United States, Facebook’s fastest growth has been among middle-age women.

In country after country, it has become so central to social life that if you are not on it — regardless of your age — you are probably not in very close contact with your friends. In my own research, for example, I have found that Facebook messaging is beginning to replace e-mail among the Italian educated elite and among businesspeople in Colombia. And in Indonesia, Facebook’s third-largest country, if you use the Internet you are almost certainly a member: Of the 30 million people online there, 27.8 million of them use Facebook.
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2. Facebook keeps changing to help sell advertising.

Zuckerberg is constantly making changes to Facebook’s features and interface, and some of these changes have left users with less control over how their personal data is displayed to the outside world. In one such instance late last year, each user’s list of friends was made public; the resulting outcry by privacy advocates and a small but vocal group of users forced Facebook to retreat this spring.

The company’s critics presume that these changes reflect a profit motive — they note that exposing users’ data makes it easier for advertisers to target them. While it may, my many interviews with Zuckerberg suggest a different agenda. For one thing, he doesn’t seem to see ad revenue as an end in itself; he sees it as a way to pay the bills as he expands his service. (If his primary motivation were short-term financial success, he might have accepted Microsoft’s 2007 offer, which would have paid him, at age 23, more than $4 billion for his share of the company. He didn’t even consider it.)

Zuckerberg seems to see himself less as an entrepreneur than as a social revolutionary who is using his company as a lever to change the world. “Making the world more open and connected” is the company’s motto; for Zuckerberg, it is a mantra. He believes that Facebook offers people worldwide a broadcast platform, and he hopes they will use it to become more effective citizens. As a result, decisions at Facebook are calibrated not so much for short-term profitability as for their effect on extending the service to more users. Staffers unabashedly used the word “ubiquity” to describe the company’s goal to me.

Zuckerberg’s fixation on constant development is also motivated by a healthy dose of paranoia: Over the course of my conversations with him, it became clear that he believes that if Facebook ever stops changing, a smaller, nimbler competitor — something like Facebook once was — will sneak up and eat his lunch.

3. Facebook users are up in arms about privacy.

Some say they are, but actions speak louder than words, and Facebook has continued to grow through each privacy controversy. The biggest one took place in September 2006, when Facebook introduced its News Feed feature, which presents the latest information about each user to all of his or her friends. Although 10 percent of users initially joined Facebook groups protesting this change, the News Feed quickly became the most popular feature on the site. Today, it more or less defines Facebook.

Another indication that most users don’t care much about privacy is that so many of them accept friend requests from people they don’t know very well — if at all. This is in part because a culture of competition, driven by a desire to rack up the most friends, has caught hold among many users. Others are uncertain about whether they can politely decline such requests. Yet, becoming someone’s “friend” on Facebook typically means giving that person access to personal information. In an experiment, security firm Sophos invited Facebook users to befriend someone named Freddi Staur, whose profile contained almost no information but showed a photo of a small green plastic frog. The request was accepted by 41 percent of users.

4. Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from other students at Harvard.

Whether he did is the dramatic question at the heart of “The Social Network,” based on Ben Mezrich’s book “The Accidental Billionaires.” Zuckerberg briefly worked for a group of older students who were building an online social network they called Harvard Connection (later renamed ConnectU), but he launched his own site, which he originally dubbed Thefacebook, before they could complete theirs. The older students felt betrayed and filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, charging that he’d ripped off their idea. He settled the claim out of court, reportedly paying the students stock worth tens of millions of dollars.

But a little context is helpful. Zuckerberg and the older students were greatly influenced by services already in operation, including Friendster, which launched in March 2003. Moreover, social networks were appearing at colleges all over the country that school year, including at Yale, Columbia and Baylor. A sophisticated service called Club Nexus had launched at Stanford in 2001.

So while Zuckerberg might have borrowed some ideas from Harvard Connection, many of these ideas were already borrowed — from Friendster and Club Nexus.

5. Facebook could soon go the way of Friendster and MySpace.

Friendster was created by a guy who said part of his motivation was to help people find dates; MySpace (which launched in August 2003) was initially used for much the same purpose. Facebook, by contrast, was conceived as a much broader communication tool. Friendster and MySpace were never as technologically sophisticated as Facebook, nor did their leaders possess a fraction of Facebook’s paranoia about competitors.

And neither of those services ever became nearly as large as Facebook. It is the largest service on the Internet by far in terms of hours of use, and it has become the world’s largest repository of photos; its users would be loathe to abandon all those pictures, since many don’t keep copies elsewhere.

All this means that Facebook has grown into something much more than a fad. It may eventually be replaced by something else, but not without a fight.（Source：Washingtonpost）