The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World

In little more than half a decade, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of million of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects - even becoming instrumental in political protests from Columbia to Iran. How did a 19 year old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the internet. IN the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of identity. This is the Facebook effect.