I watched the movie The Social Network the other night. It’s about the co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and how he turned his Internet Social networking site Facebook into a multibillion dollar company. Near the beginning of the movie, Zuckerberg was portrayed in a negative light after he posted a drunken blog online about his every thought. In it he mentioned things about his ex-girlfriend such as how she wears a size C braw when she only has B’s; he called that false advertising and I agree. This led to a fight between the two, and Zuckerberg does come off as a bit of an asshole in that scene, and it seems to continue through the movie. Having said that, I found that the scene in the legal office/room, where they were having the talks with the lawyers, the one lady lawyer tells him that he's not an asshole; he just tries so hard to be one. That made me connect with the character and feel like Zuckerburg was more like a real person who has struggles like the rest of us.
I think Facebooks popularity rose from the release of this movie, it got lots of media coverage, and after two or so weeks of being in the theatres, the show I went to was near full. This probably did much more for Zuckerberg’s popularity more than that of Facebook’s though, since you had to of been living under a rock to not of heard of Facebook before, I don't think most poeple knew who Mark Zuckerberg was: and now we do.
The day the movie came out; Zuckerberg appeared on Oprah and announced the establishment of his foundation and his first gift of $100 million to the Newark school system. I don’t think that it was necessary, and his claim: that the timing of the donation and its correlation to the movie release was just a coincidence, I thought was laughable. However, when you have over 500 million on the most popular social networking site on the web, it’s going to take a lot to change people’s perception on the site. I think he just should have made his appearance on Oprah and whatever other shows he appeared on, and saved his $100 million donation until the DVD release.
Sources Used:
http://prpost.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/zuckerberg-hearst-and-hollywood-pr-lessons-learned-from-the-past/
