Following my posts last week, these books will be my reading material for the next couple of weeks.

I went to see The Social Network, and I really enjoyed it. I reckon that a lot of people will go to see the ‘Facebook Movie’, because they use facebook a lot, and I think they will probably come away disappointed. The movie was quite business, and technology orientated, and while that will appeal to some people (like me), I think it might bore others.

What I am really interested about the movie, is how much truth is actually in it. ‘The Social Network’ is a movie, based on the book, ‘The Accidental Billionaires’, which is based on Eduardo Saverin’s account of the history of Facebook.

Having read a few blogs and articles about the movie before going to see it, I was of the opinion that it was going to be more or less a fabrication, and imagine some of it was, but I also suspect there was a good deal of truth in it.

The movie is focused on two lawsuits that founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was involved in. One with Facebook co-founder, and former best friend, Eduardo Saverin, and one with the Winklevoss twins. Mark comes across as a bit of a jerk, who stabbed his best friend in the back, and stole his big idea from other students at Harvard. However I think he is portrayed as a worse person than he probably is. I think the person that is to blame for the damaged relationship between Mark and Eduardo, was Napster founder, Sean Parker, although Mark still has responsibility for his own actions.

Regardless of the negative way that Zuckerberg was portrayed, the film did still portray him as driven, smart guy. It has also made Mark Zuckerberg a celebrity to millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t have heard of him, even though they use his creation every day.

What I would really love, would be if Zuckerberg, Saverin, and the Winklevosses, all published their own books, with their version of events. I have no doubt that all 3 books would have conflicting stories, but it would be interesting to see the differences.

I think now that I have seen the film, I will re-read the articles I have read, and I want to also want to read ‘The Facebook Effect’ by David Kirkpatrick, and ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich, to gain a bit more insight into the origins of the the site that now has over 500 million members.

I do recommend the film, but being a little bit geeky I am somewhat biased.

Google (not going to bother linking, you know where to find it), has been in the news recently, well at least in the geeky news that I tend to read. In fact Google is rarely out of the tech news headlines, but specifically, recently they have been in the news due to the preview of Chrome OS, the beta of Wave, and rather controversially their plans to digitise and publish every book online.

Recently, Wired UK magazine had a great article about Google, it made me want to learn a bit more about the company. So at some point I do want to, and plan to read ‘The Google Story’ by David Vise.

I stumbled upon this video earlier, it sums up the various stages Google has gone through over the years, and charts their various products. It’s only a couple of minutes long and worth a watch, even if only for the nice graphics of the video.

I remember that every time was flying out of Belfast International Airport, I always headed straight for the newsagent once through security. This is because it was one of the only places I could buy Wired magazine, the US edition.

I loved the magazine because it was full of really good articles about technology, and packed with information about the latest gadgets. So when I heard that Condé Naste, the publishers, were going to publish a Wired UK, I was pretty excited. I missed the first copy disappointing, I may try to get a back copy of it, but have been buying it every month since the 2nd copy.

Wired UK

If you are in anyway interested in technology, future of the web, nano/bio technology, medical and scientific developments and research, then you should pick up a copy of Wired UK and have a read. What magazines, if any, do you read regularly?