Monday's Movie Review: The Social Network.

Our Rating *** (3.5 Stars)

Being in "the business" of social networking and New Media I have been interested in watching this movie, but not so interested that I rushed out to see it when it was released. Happy to wait for the DVD moment at home. It seemed like more of a work thing than an entertainment thing.
This weekend that happened whilst doing paperwork in front of the fire with a frigid Antarctic southerly blast rocketing over our home.

I have read a forest's worth of online information about Facebook, it's inception and development over the years as I have got to grips with the power of social networking and all that it offers businesses and individuals alike. It is a fascinating time in our social evolution.
Likewise the story of Facebook also seems to evolve depending on who is telling the story, and offers a great lesson for all those involved in the development and deployment of web projects. This is certainly not lost on us as we are at the heart of design and development and the roll out of our very own social networking project (www.tussockjumper.com) in conjunction with, and on behalf of clients in the Netherlands.

So what of the movie The Social Network?
As a movie it is intriguing, and is filled with suitable blends of drama and storytelling. Mark Zuckerberg is certainly portrayed as an awkward, introverted man capable of self centred behaviour and not adverse to stabbing those that help him in the back when they no longer serve him a purpose. Is this an accurate depiction? Time will tell.
I liked it, and whilst feeling a little frustrated at the glamerisation of a back story I felt I knew a little about that was told in a different way, it was still entertaining. So many ways to tell a story. So many different versions of history. This is also in some ways the story of the cult of celebrity within our western society.
The movie so far has been a huge hit, grossing USD$225 million and garnishing critical aclaim far and wide.

The back stories behind the story of Facebook are vast. There are many different versions of how and who got the company off the ground. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg seems to have his own version of events, which are very different to that of others. There are the obvious scandals surrounding the Winklevoss Twins and their claim that he took their idea, whilst employed by them to develop their site, and ran with a different version of the concept to deploy Facebook. It has also come to light that there may actually be another player in this that has documented evidence that he and Mark had a 50/50 deal going right at the start.

This scandal is in the process of blowing up or being settled. It is hard to tell. I imagine that it is quietly being settled.
It was reported in April 2011 that Paul Ceglia, from upstate New York, had filed a lawsuit claiming that he had a contract signed in 2003 between himself and Mark Zuckerberg of a 50/50 split covering two projects on which the two were working together--a Ceglia project called "StreetFax" and a Zuckerberg project called "the face book." He also produced a canceled check for $1,000. He also explained why he waited 7 years to file the claim.

As reported on the website the Business Insider < http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-lawsuit-paul-ceglia-new-evidence-2011-4 >

The purported contract (they have a link to the analysis they did) gave Ceglia a 50% ownership in "the face book" project in exchange for funding its initial development, as well as an additional 1% ownership of the project per day for every day that the project remained uncompleted past a certain launch date.

When the lawsuit and the purported contract came to light, Facebook dismissed the whole thing as a fabrication.

Specifically, Facebook said the StreetFax part of the contract was real but that the rest had been doctored to include mention of "the face book."

And given the time that had passed, Ceglia's fraud conviction, and the lack of a payment trail for payments made to fund the development of "the face book" (as opposed to StreetFax), this indeed seemed the most logical explanation.

But now Paul Ceglia has refiled his lawsuit. With a much larger law firm. And a lot more evidence.

And the new evidence is startling.
Ceglia has produced more than a dozen of what he says are emails between him and Mark Zuckerberg from July 2003 to July 2004, the year in which Facebook was created.

In these purported emails, (which are included on the page), Zuckerberg and Ceglia discuss "the face book" project in detail. They discuss how Ceglia will fund the project. They discuss how Ceglia has funded the project (proof of payment). They discuss how Zuckerberg has met some upperclassmen--the Winklevosses, presumably--who are pursuing a similar project, and how Zuckerberg is "stalling" them. They discuss how Zuckerberg has failed to complete the "face book" project on time. They discuss the launch of the face book, which Ceglia agrees looks great.

The emails then include Zuckerberg telling Ceglia that the Facebook site is not doing well. They include Zuckerberg telling Ceglia that the site has seen so little success that Zuckerberg is thinking of shutting it down. And, in the summer of 2004, they include Zuckerberg offering to send Ceglia his $2,000 of funding back--right at the time Zuckerberg had moved to California to continue to develop, incorporate, and raise money for Facebook.

Ceglia contends that most of what Zuckerberg told him after the launch of the site were lies. (Facebook, as we all now know, went gangbusters right from the beginning). And Ceglia contends that, in the summer of 2004, Zuckerberg "misappropriated" the assets of their general partnership and conveyed them to the corporation that became Facebook, Inc.

Lastly, Ceglia contends that, in accordance with the original agreement, he was entitled to an equal share of Zuckerberg's ownership in the corporation.

Paul Ceglia's new law firm is a bit more powerful than the small-town upstate New York lawyer who was representing him last summer. The firm is DLA Piper, which is a major international law firm that primarily represents technology companies.

We have spoken to DLA Piper about the new evidence and amended lawsuit.

DLA Piper took on Ceglia's case very recently, after performing "weeks" of due diligence to persuade itself that Ceglia's claims were valid.

As part of its due diligence process, DLA Piper says, it performed an electronic analysis of the contract Ceglia provided. The firm says this analysis made it confident the contract has not been doctored.

DLA Piper says the lawsuit is well within the statute of limitations in New York, which is 6 years from the breach of contract. DLA regards the "breach of contract" as Mark Zuckerberg's incorporating Facebook in July 2004 and conveying the assets of the Ceglia-Zuckerberg partnership into the new corporation without telling Ceglia. The lawsuit, meanwhile, was filed in early summer 2010.

Fascinating back story isn't it. Wonder what will happen with all of this.

Here is an interview in which he adds to the mystique surrounding the creation of Facebook - the story about how he cobbled it together by himself in his dorm room over a couple of days.

Here is a great video which details the Winklevoss twins and their account of the movie.
Fascinating.

And another interview with Mark Zuckerberg regarding why he want's to stay in control.

This just for a bit of interest - check out the hoodie!