Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider, which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
© Unknown
Facebook is currently in the spotlight for its relentlessly increasing exposure of data its users assumed was private. This is nicely illustrated in the interactive graphic you can find here
In turn, its fall from grace has made backers of the 'social media' bubble quite nervous. Many new white collar nonjobs created since the mid-Noughties depend on the commercial value of your output, and persona;l information. (Both are invariably donated for free).
But there's a problem.
Much of the data created by Web2.0rrhea is turning out to be quite useless for advertisers - or anyone else. Marketeers are having a harder time justifying the expenditure in sifting through the Web 2.0 septic tank for the odd useful nugget of information.
Facebook's data stash is regarded as something quite special. It's authenticated against a real person, and the users tend to be over 35 and middle class - the ideal demographic for selling high value goods and services. In addition, users have so far been 'sticky' to Facebook, something quite exceptional since social networks fall out of fashion (Friends Reunited, Friendster) as quickly as they attract users.
Facebook also has something else going for it - ordinary users regard it as the natural upgrade to Hotmail. In fact, once the crap has been peeled away, there may not be much more to Facebook than the Yahoo! or Hotmail Address Book with knobs on: the contact book is nicely integrated, uploading photos to share easier, while everything else is gravy. Unlike tech-savvy users, many people remain loyal to these for years. ®
Sewage is an inevitable result of living. How many of us add to the septic tank expecting it to produce a diamond? Most all never give one thought to the dumping of effluent into the system. We just do it... It is an inevitable part of of a process we give too little thought to. For others to become forensic over what we dump would appear to be fetish gone horribly wrong. Yet, as the old Yorkshire saying goes, "Where there's muck, there's brass".
No wonder a Sewerage Meister such as Mark Z feels he has hit pay dirt on our detritus. It is we that have yet to realize our muck is bullets for some else and indiscriminent dumping only offers us up as more fodder to the machine creating resultant "cr*p".
The answer is to live our lives with greater awareness, spend less time dumping and more time digesting, masticating and absorbing the nutritional content of right living, critical thinking and right action.