It's Complicated - The Power of Facebook

Short description

The 'Power of Facebook' explains every aspect of this mighty internet company. The Power of Facebook is precisely taken apart and reassembled in a comprehensive journalistic fashion, with one eye always towards the future, and always facts and opinions from all sides. What exactly is happening with us on Facebook?

Addressing the platform in terms of our restless controlling libido, our deep desire to bridge distances between people, and as the ultimate form of virtual identification and marketing cache, this book traverses many facet of the growing power of Facebook, until it arrives at the ultimate question: how can Facebook itself become our friend?

Antoinette Hoes, Head of Strategy of digital marketing agency Tribal DDB:

"Never before has the phenomenon of Facebook been so intense and thoroughly analyzed as in this book, drawing from numerous sources. Peter Olsthoorn combines humor with seriousness, well-founded suspicion with genuine curiosity, and harsh criticism with substantiated admiration."

Table of contents

Introduction
Quotations
Key statistics
I The Essential Pleasure and Power

1. The pleasure of Facebook
2. Facebook's kitchen secrets
3. The great power, the internet passport

II The Battle for Privacy and Marketing

4. The fantastic privacy labyrinth
5. The huge data struggle
6. Brands want your friendship

III Living with/in Facebook

7. Our social ties
8. From tinkering to Facebookaholism
9. Adultery, divorce, revenge and even murder
10. “Theo, are you dead or something?”

IV Facebook, Crime and Revolution

11. CIA, police and cybercrime
12. Facebook as a terrorist weapon
13. Revolutions, protest and election campaigns

V The Public Debates

14. Philosophers on Facebook
15. From authors to internet brains

VI Mark and the Facebook Economics

16. Facebook competition…
17. A close up on the boss and the money

VII Possible Futures

18. How does Facebook become our friend?

Addendum: Statistics

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“After dealing with the world of Google, Peter Olsthoorn, with his famously sharp analytical skills, now maps for us the power of Facebook.”

(Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent)

‘With his unrivaled knowledge of facts, Peter Olsthoorn provides us, after Google, with a deep insight into the excesses and innovations of Facebook.’

(Geert Lovink, founder of Institute for Network Cultures and Professor in media in The Netherlands and Switzerland)

"One of Europe's best Internet journalists dissects Facebook scrupulously. With its motto ‘First the facts, then the opinions’, this is once again a must read for every individual and company that wants to understand how 'the social' is taking over the internet."

(Vincent Everts, renowned investor, entrepreneur and speaker)

About the author

Peter Olsthoorn was one of the first European Internet journalists and has been writing on internet technology and culture since 1995. He is a member of the Dutch Press Council, a well-known opinion leader about internet subjects, and founded several important journalistic websites.

He is the author of the books Internet and Intranet (1997), and De macht van Google (The Power of Google, 2010), partly translated as The Price We Pay for Google. Peter is a happy, critical user of Facebook.