Author(s): David Kirkpatrick

Business

In August, 2008, Facebook signed up its 100 millionth user. Eight months later its 200 millionth user signed up. Today it is closing in on 250 million users. This phenomenal growth rate is unprecedented and shows the allure and power of Facebook. It has become an essential part of the social life of a generation, all around the world. David Kirkpatrick traces the Facebook story from its origins in Mark Zuckerberg's dorm room at Harvard, where a handful of 19-year-olds devised a way for Harvard students to connect with one another, then with other Ivy League students, then college students more generally, and so on until it became the number one social networking site on the internet that it is today. This is the inside story of one of the greatest business and social tales of our time.