Just watched The Social Network and realise that regardless of effort, my views of Zuck and the pair of oars will be forever skewed.
The movie tells a story, but is it a genuine account of events? Unless an impartial observer documented every conversation, feeling, comment and email transaction, there's no way any of those involved would ever have absolute, objective clarity several years later.
So did Zuck steal the idea? The movie suggests not. The media around the time left me with the impression that the twins were a couple of chancers with what they thought was an amazing idea, but hadn't really committed to developing it.
Told from a different angle, the story might reflect Zuck as a blatant theif, developing the idea on his own and pulling the rug.
The common elements of the product though, were mostly present in other services already. Functionally, there was little difference between it and MySpace and others.
Would the resulting claim and settlement have been different if Zuck had developed their idea AND The Facebook at the same time, I wonder?
One things for sure, Facebook marketing opportunities are far greater than the other proposition.
