The Social Network

By Leon Buengel

The movie ´The Social Network´ is an American movie that tells the story of the creator of Facebook.

In 2003, after being left by his girlfriend, because he was an asshole, the American student Mark Zuckerberg had the idea of a social network, which was called FaceMatch. The basic idea of this website was that the user could decide who was the prettiest out of various pairs of women from his college. This website was created with the help of his best friend, Eduardo Severin. To get the necessary information and the photos, Mark hacked into the computers of Harvard University. When he made this site, he wrote many insulting and negative posts about his former girlfriend on his wall. After these posts his website became more and more famous; one night there were more than 20,000 clicks on the site. Harvard University’s computers broke down and there was no connection to the Internet. After this accident Mark had to go to court: six months without causing any problems or he would go to prison. His ex-girlfriend did not want to talk to him, because she was sad and mad at him on account of all his posts.

The twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their friend Divya Direnda were interested in Mark and his idea. They talked to Mark about their idea of an elite network just for the students of Harvard. They needed Mark´s help and he said he would cooperate. After this meeting there was no physical contact between Mark and them, only via the computer.

With the help of Mark’s two friends Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, the website thefacebook.com was created. The main idea was that the students would have the opportunity to write about their experiences in college. They would talk to their friends via Internet. But they did not expect thefacebook.com to be such a success. In a week the site was all over Harvard University, and people outside wanted it too. Sean Parker, the creator of a famous music-sharing service, was asked to help them make the page more well known, so Facebook would not be just a connection for students. Mark wanted to get a lot of money. They talked not about millions of dollars but about billions.

His friend Eduardo would not work with the company and went to court; he wanted his money. The twins went to court because they believed their idea had been stolen by Mark.

Eduardo received a lot money. The amount is unknown. The twins received 65 millions. Mark Zuckenberg is the youngest ever self-made billionaire. In 2010 the market value for Facebook was expected to reach 25 billion dollars.