The History of Facebook

Facebook is the largest, fastest growing social site on the web, and yet its concept started in a college dorm room, and was (in part) modeled after one.

Charles Peterson’s essay for The New York Review of Books, “In the World of Facebook,” chronicles the history of the site, from ramen noodles to multi-millions, explaining how social hierarchy and exclusivity bore and bread the most successful social network in recent memory.

Expounding on its simplistic design and content shifts over the years, Peterson discusses how everything from color choice to the invention of the News Feed led to Facebook’s unprecedented success.

[For more read the The Rumpus interview with an anonymous Facebook employee.]
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Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. Formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s and most recently the founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, Isaac is now the co-host of BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Morning Show, #AMtoDM. He also appears frequently on The Today Show to talk books, and is co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes) (winner of an IACP award), and the author of a YA novel and picture book forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He uses Twitter.

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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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