The Social Network

Chapter 2

Harvard University Fall 2003 

(KIRKLAND HOUSE/LOBBY - NIGHT)

As the music continues and Mark busts into the lobby of his dorm. He doesn't look at anyone as he heads up the stairs and walks to his dorm.  

(MARK'S DORM ROOM - NIGHT)

A bedroom that's part of a three-bedroom suite. The Music continues as Mark walks in, flicks his lap-top on without looking at it and walks to his mini-frigde where he pulls out a Beck's beer. 

Mark's fingers dance easily on the keyboard--like a Juilliard pianist warming up. The website he's just called up gets loaded onto the screen. This is the only place he's comfortable. He begins blogging.

8:13 PM 

(Mark's words on the computer) 

Erica Albright's a bitch. Do you think 

that's because her family changed their name from Albrecht or do you think it's because all B.U. girls are bitches? For the record, she may look like a 34C 

but she's getting all kinds of help from her friends at Victoria's Secret. She's a 34B, as in barely anything there. False advertising.

The truth is she has a nice face. I need 

to do something to help me take my mind off her. Easy enough, except I need an idea.

Mark takes out a keyboard for his desktop computer and takes a drink from his beer. 

Billy Owsen walks into the room carrying a six pack. He sits on the bed behind Mark and opens one for himself. 

Mark has moved his mouse to an icon on his desktop labeled "Kirkland Facebook". He clicks and opens it. A menu of photos appear. He blogs again.

I'm a little intoxicated, I'm not gonna 

lie. So what if it's not even 10PM and it's a Tuesday night? The Kirkland facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics. Billy Olson's sitting here and had the 

idea of putting some of these next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on who's hotter. It resembles the kind of bus that would take you to the rental car place but on board are two-dozen College girls who are dressed for a party. Last minute make-up touch-ups are being done and a joint is being passed.

Yea, it's on. I'm not gonna do the farm 

animals but I like the idea of comparing two people together. It gives the whole thing a very "Turing" feel since people's ratings of the pictures will be more implicit than, say, 

choosing a number to represent each person's hotness like they do on hotornot.com. The first thing we're going 

to need is a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, Harvard doesn't keep a 

public centralized "face" "book" so I'm going to have to get all the images from the individual houses that people are in. Let the hacking begin.

There are two more kids in the room with Mark, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. 

(MARK SPEAKING IN HIS MIND) 

First up is Kirkland. They keep 

everything open and allow indexes in their Apache configuration, so a little computer magic is all that's necessary to download the entire Kirkland facebook.

On the computer screen, picture after picture of Harvard girls download to his computer. Mark finishes another drink and gets back to his work.

(MARK SPEAKING IN HIS MIND) 

Next is Elliot. They're also open but 

with no indexes on Apache. I can run an empty search and it returns all of the images in the database in a single page. Then I can save the page and Mozilla will save all the images for me. Excellent. Moving right along.

Flying by at super-speed on Mark's computer screen have been commands and images that the rest of us can't possibly understand.

(MARK SPEAKING IN HIS MIND) 

Lowell has some security. They require a 

username/password combo and I'm going to go ahead and say they don't have access to main FAS user database, so they have no way of detecting an intrusion. Adams has no security but limits the number of results to twenty a page. All I need to do is break out the same script I used on Lowell and we're set. Quincy has no online "Face Book", what a shame. Nothing I can do about that.

Instructions and images fly across Mark's screen.

(MARK SPEAKING IN HIS MIND) 

Dunster is intense. Not only is there no 

public directory but there's no..... Leverett is a little better. It's slightly obnoxious that they only let you view one picture at a time and I'm not about to-- definitely necessary to break out the 

emacs and modify that perl script with--

(KIRKLAND HOUSE/STAIRWAY -NIGHT)  

Eduardo Saverin, a nice-looking Brazilian sophomore wearing a nice, expensive suit, is rushing up the stairs two at a time.  

"Done." Mark says to himself.

Eduardo gets to the top of the stairs and hurries into the dorm room.  

"What's going on?" Eduardo asks.

(MARK SPEAKING IN HIS MIND) 

Perfect timing. Eduardo's here and he's 

going to have the key ingredient.

"Wardo," Mark nicknames his friend. 

"You and Erica split up?" Eduardo asks. 

"How did you know that?" Mark asks back. 

"It's on your blog," Eduardo answers. 

"Yeah," Mark agrees. 

"Are you alright?" Eduardo asks with concern. 

"I need you," Mark says. 

"I'm here for you," Eduardo tells him. 

"No, I need the algorithm you use to rank 

chess players," Mark explains. 

"Are you okay?" Eduardo asks confused. 

"We're ranking girls," Mark says. 

"You mean other students?" Eduardo asks. 

"Yeah," Mark replies. 

"You think this is such a good idea?" Eduardo asks. 

"I need the algorithm," Mark says again. 

"Okay," Eduardo gives in.