Watching The Social Network, it’s difficult not to view Zuckerberg as a rat douchebag.  His lack of caring for those who helped contribute to his success, can easily be seen as deplorable, low, and scummy.  However, he along with Sean Parker, were the only ones that saw the actual idea that Facebook was.  While Eduardo spent his time in New York setting up meetings with advertisers, Mark and Sean spent time growing Facebook internationally.  Advertising within Facebook, at the time, would have ruined it.  The reason I, along with millions of others, loved the site opposed to MySpace and Friendster, was the lack of ads.  The lack of in-your-face, look-at-this-now splashes and pops made it cool to be on there.  The fact that, at the time, you needed a college email address in order to set up an account gave the exclusivity factor the ultimate selling point.  Eduardo would have not only ruined the website, but he would have given someone else the chance to take the idea of Facebook and make it better (possibly Google+ coming sooner?).  The reason Mark swooned so carelessly with Sean Parker was because he knew that Sean understood this.  The reason Eduardo was screwed out of the company was because of the same.

We all know that when it comes to business, feelings get hurt.  Why? Because feelings don’t matter when it comes to these decisions.  If they would have kept Eduardo on, they would have constant battles over how the site will make it’s money, how advertising would be presented, who would advertise, etc.  The way Facebook differed from the rest really was the exclusivity.  Not only because the necessity of the college email address, but also because it made people feel separate and private from advertisers and commercials.  The pages loaded faster, the site never crashed, you felt a part of something hip that you didn’t want anyone outside of your generation to be a part of.  In a way, this is why people make such a stink about any changes.  They are afraid it won’t be as cool anymore.  It allows people to stick their nose in their air and proclaim their superiority in regards to who joined first and when.  I joined the site freshman year of college in 2004, so that automatically  makes me cooler than the person who joined in 2006.  I remember when it was the Facebook and not just Facebook.  I remember when Mark’s head was on the homepage.  You don’t?  You should probably feel left out.  Why? No fucking reason at all.  It’s stupid.  It means nothing.  But society makes you think it was incredibly important.

The way Facebook does it’s advertising now is pretty brilliant.  If you are, say, the marketing director at an instrument company, you can’t just contact Facebook and work out a deal where you will pay such and such amount to have your ads run for this long and work out exclusive rights for a certain time period for the home page and blah blah blah.  You have to be a member of Facebook, and you have to go through the same process as everyone else, all while not even talking to any physical person at the company.  You fill out forms, you put in keywords, and you control the type of people who are able to see your ad.  It is efficient, it is economical, and it is successful.  The amount of money you save running ads via Facebook, as opposed to how much you would spend in magazines and other various forms of print (not to mention television), is astronomical.  Not only that, but your ads reach more people, more often.  Eduardo didn’t see this.  He saw large corporations paying large lump sums to run large, gross, distracting advertisements all over a site that was supposed to be a private, members-only, online establishment.  Yes, he was screwed over, but he would have been the downfall of what is now seen as one of the most important internet “inventions” of all time.  It’s easy to feel bad for him, but in business, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.  They essentially used him for financial backing until they were able to be on their own, but with the increasing amount of important people around them, they could have easily cut him off sooner and become larger, quicker.

But this is all seen from the viewpoint of an audience member for a movie.  In actuality, the scenario and chain of events was far more intricate than portrayed in the film (I assume).  These are simply thoughts after lots of coffee on a traveling bus.  Marketing and advertising is a beast that only few can perfect, and Facebook has done something brilliant with it.  It’s tiring hearing people talk about how they “hate” Facebook or “I use Google+, it’s better because of  this and that” or “I use a new site called Path, it’s a lot cleaner.”  Look, I’m not an enthusiast, I’m a realist.  It’s fun to be a part of something that few know about, and to be against something that everyone knows about.  It’s called being a snob, and I’m just as guilty (if not more-so in several areas) than the next, but Facebook is clean.  Yeah, it’s gigantic and annoying how everyone is on it, all the time, including your parents.  But let’s be real.  Facebook is a significant part of this generation, and every time someone talks about the next big thing, and refer to it as “the Facebook killer,” nothing happens.  Google+, in my opinion, sucks.  MySpace gained over a million new subscribers, and I don’t care…yet.  If anything kills Facebook, it won’t be for a long time.  Mark is smarter than you, and he was smarter than Eduardo.  He created something that he knew only a select few would understand the importance of, and he knew Eduardo didn’t see it at all.  You want to create the next big thing?  Start taking notes.