The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick Review

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

Author: David Kirkpatrick

Genre: Social Media, Marketing

Page Count: 384 pages

Publish Date: February 1, 2011

Book Type: Owned Paperback

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 9781439102121

Picture from Goodreads

My Review: Kirkpatrick really makes “The Facebook Effect” an easy read. It would be well suited for anyone looking to better understand the beginnings of Facebook. Many of the people at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, were involved in “The Facebook Effect,” but the book is not all praise, which is nice. The book is set-up as a timeline of Facebook’s evolution - which is sort of funny considering the new layout on Facebook currently. Throughout the book, Kirkpatrick emphasizes the effect social networking sites have had on the way people interact with each other. 

While nicely describing the evolution of Facebook, “The Facebook Effect” could have detailed how businesses use Facebook a bit more like promised in the Prologue. The book mainly focuses on the company and a bit on how consumers use Facebook. It would have been nice to read more information about Facebook’s users instead of mainly company information. The user information seemed sort of thrown into the book toward the end. Even with “The Facebook Effect’s” faults, the book was still engaging and an interesting read.

Kirkpatrick spent a good amount of time discussing Zuckerberg and Facebook’s willingness to change, which was a good thing. Much like every day, real life, social networking sites need to evolve and not remain stagnant. Even newer emerging niche social networking sites, such as Pinterest, allow for Facebook integration. Zuckerberg was smart in allowing Pinterest to utilize Facebook. The integration allows for both sites to flourish without explicitly taking users away from each other.