The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff

Introduction

“I am a firm believer in the people.”

—Abraham Lincoln

It was the spring of 2007. Smoking indoors hadn’t yet been outlawed, though this place might not have cared either way. These two older men, clearly regulars, sat in the back corner, bare, lanky arms hanging out of their wifebeaters, cigarette dangling out one side of their mouth and a toothpick out the other. They were gesturing animatedly, laughing, eating, smoking, chattering away in loud Cantonese about this and that.

I tuned them out to focus on my steaming bowl of wonton soup. Just then, out of the corner of my ear, I heard them just barely:“…blah blah blah Facebook.” I instantly sat up to listen. I had not been mistaken—these two men slurping down their congee at an ...