Movie Review 15: The Social Network

John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is - Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba?
John Keating: Mr. Perry?
Neil: To communicate.
John Keating: No! To woo women

That classic exchange from Dead Poets Society is the key theme that drives the story of “The Social Network” and likely the creation of Facebook in the real world, as well.
The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin, and based on the book, The Accidental Billionaires purports to be the story behind Facebook.  While the general content may be true, there are plenty of fictionalized accounts in the movie. Sorkin did not approach the subject matter and a journalist, but as a story teller.  And as a story teller, he did a great job.

When I first heard there was going to be a Facebook movie, I was skeptical.  When I saw the previews I thought, “Huh.  This might not suck.”  Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say this a surprisingly good movie.

The movie uses two legal depositions as the framework for telling the story of how Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at Harvard created Facebook. It seems an odd choice to use that framework since “website authoring” and “legal deposition” aren’t typically buzzwords that bring people into the theater. 

The film opens as Erica Albright, Mark Zuckerberg’s (fictional) girlfriend breaks up with him in a restaurant.  He goes back to his Harvard dorm room, blogs nastily about her while drunk (seriously, folks, BWI, or blogging while impaired, is rarely a good idea (come to think of it, BWI, or Baltimore Washington International airport is also rarely a good idea)), and then hacks several Harvard networks to create a website that ranks women based on attractiveness.  He crashes the network, and we are off to the races.


The reason the subject matter works as a movie is because the fact that we’re talking about Facebook is almost incidental.  The story is about friendship, betrayal, naiveté, revenge, pettiness, and honor.  The socially inept and obsessively driven Zuckerberg moves forward with his ideas and get caught up folks who are simultaneously exactly the right people and wrong people to be involved with.

In many respects, the story is about a bunch of kids who don’t have the wisdom or experience to realize they are in over their heads.

Jesse Eisenberg does a fantastic job as Mark Zuckerberg, and is all about the contrast.  He shows a great balance of awkwardness and smarminess. You’re never sure if his Zuckerberg needs a hug or a smack across the face.

Andrew Garfield does a good job playing Eduardo Saverin, though he seems to lack depth or definition at times.  Sorkin doesn’t flesh out the character or the relationship with Zuckerberg well enough. Saverin is supposed to be Zuckerberg’s best friend, but why?  Sorkin doesn’t do enough to establish that relationship, and Zuckerberg and Saverin are different enough, that we can’t just assume the friendship is natural.

Justin Timberlake plays a larger than life Sean Parker, the over the top Napster and Plaxo founder, who splits Zuckerberg and Saverin apart.  The Zuckerberg and Parker characters look an awful lot alike, which severs the story in interesting ways.  It shows Zuckerberg the person he can potentially be if things go right.  And it shows Parker the person he would like to be again.

The most interesting thing I learned about Facebook from this movie was that Sean Parker had such a role with the company.

At times, Timberlake’s portrayal is distracting.  His character reminded me less of the young genius who changed the record business for ever, and more of Neal Patrick Harris’s Barney from “How I Met Your Mother.”

Brenda Song, known to many as the Disney Channel’s London Tipton from “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” plays a very different character here.  As fellow Harvard Student Christy Ling, she connects Zuckerberg with Parker.  She appears several more times in the story, but I’m not sure why.  It’s as though Sorkin just wanted to add love interest but her presence doesn't really add much to plot or flesh out the characterizations of Zuckerberg or Saverin much.

Armie Hammer does a great job playing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.  I had not idea it was one actor playing both of them until I read about it on the movie’s website.  The characters felt different.  In the story, they are identical twins. But as I watched the movie, I thought they didn’t look that much alike.  In fact they were more a like than twins because it turns out they were the same actor.

Characterization, though, is not Sorkin’s strong point.  He wrote them and their business partner Divya Narendra (played by Max Minghella) as nothing more than spoiled, entitled rich kids who’ve never had to earn anything.  They were the “dumb jocks” of the movie, and that seems too simple. 

They’re in the story because they founded an early Facebook competitor called ConnectU and claim they hired Zuckerberg to code it for them.  They sue him, claiming he stole their idea and turned it into Facebook.
It’s possible Sorkin’s sketch of them is accurate, but I doubt it.  It was too flat and simple.  Whereas other aspects of the film and story were more nuanced, this thread was too black and white.

Despite those concerns, this is still an excellent movie.  Sorkin’s story telling is compelling. The cinematography is also excellent.  The crew race in England is beautifully shot. The pacing is crisp.
 
I don’t know how much it reflects the reality of the story of Facebook; doubtless there is plenty of fictional content.  It is, after all, a story and not a documentary.

It exceeded all my expectations, though, and is definitely worth seeing.

For more of my movie reviews, click here.

Here is the movie trailer:

My future with Entrecard

I last wrote about Entrecard here.

Within the past couple weeks, however, I accidentally changed my Entrecard habits.

I had been able to hit my 300 drops in about 1.5 hours if all worked well. Often it would take longer, but that didn't mean I was just doing card drops for hours on end.  I would open about 50-80 tabs at a time, and let them load while I went and did something else.  After 10 minutes or so, I would come back and skim some sites, read others, and just drop and run on others that did not have fresh content.  But for several days I didn't quite have the energy to do that, and once I stopped for a few days, I no longer felt compelled to get back into that rhythm.

I'm not leaving Entrecard.  I'm not angry with them.  Their new approach to paid ads makes more sense than their older one; I don't like it, but I understand it.  I still see value in the service.  I'll continue to drop cards on the blogs I regularly read anyway, and will need to update my bookmarks so I can visit other favorites that I usually just get to by finding them in my Inbox.

My Entrecard use could turn into one of those old flame relationships.  You break up with someone, but still promise to be friends.  You both make the effort, and have a few awkward coffee shop visits.  Eventually  you start to miss phone calls and forget to return one another's voice mail and before you know it, a decade has passed and you find yourself wondering, "What ever happened to her?" You Google or Facebook them and find they have a new family and smile broadly in their pictures, and think, "That's nice." And your genuinely happy for them, if at times a little wistful.

From time to time, I'll still drop a lot of cards, visit new blogs, and hit my 300 a day.  On occasion.  I think. Or is that just awkward coffee shop banter?

What brings this on?

Basically, I  got tired of visiting 300 blogs a day.

It had been a habit for over a year.  And by visiting 300 blogs nearly every day, and placing ads on Entrecard every day, I was able to secure that top 3 spot.

I didn't decide to change my habits -- it just happened.  The triggering event was likely my rant on CSI: Miami where I commented about how I tend to ride things into the ground.  By writing that post, I lost my desire to ride Entrecard to the bitter end. That, combined with increase work schedules, and some spotty broadband performance made opening 50 tabs at once an unpleasant experience at best.

Once I stopped dropping regularly, my rank fell pretty quickly. Over the past couple weeks I dropped from the top 5 most popular EntreCard blogs down to the 60-75th place range.

My daily blog traffic dropped from 350 visitor per day to about 225.

And you know something? Some how the world didn't end.

Adgitize, CMF Ads, and Entrecard together

This post will cover three of the Blog marketing resources that I use and the traffic that I get. I'll talk a little bit about how they work, and spend most of my time on Adgitize, because I actually make money with Adgitize.

If you would like to start using Adgitize and start generating revenue from very little work, you can sign up here. Or you can sign up by clicking the Adgitize logo above. (Note:these are my affiliate links, and if you use them, I will make a few bucks).

You won't get rich on the program, but it's a nice way to get a few dollars in Pay Pal.

But Adgitize isn't just a tool for generating cash; it can also generate traffic.

But you are probably wondering about the cash.

In May, I added Adgitize ads to my blog and made $2.23 between May 23 and May 31.

In June, I began running my ad on the network. That costs $14/month. I made $18.34 -- a $4.34 profit.

In July, I did the same thing and made $16.52 -- a $2.52 profit.

In addition to the small profit, Adgitize also drives 15%-20% of my traffic.

Here is where visitors to Cromely's World are coming from:

June 2009 Traffic Sources:

Source/Medium	Percent of Visits
Entrecard Sites	46%
Direct	24%
Adgitize	20%
Google Sites	5.49%
Additional sites	1.56%
CMF Ads	0.71%
Not In My Book	0.48%
Blogger	0.43%
Stumble Upon	0.36%
Facebook	0.33%
Yahoo	0.33%

July 2009 Traffic Sources

Source	Per Centage of Visits
Entrecard Related	33.03%
Stumble Upon	21.71%
Direct	20.32%
Adgitize Sites	15.93%
Google Sites	4.75%
Additional Sites	2.03%
notjohnchow.com	1.13%
CMF Ads	0.72%
Yahoo	0.40%

Each month, my top traffic source has been Entrecard. Cromely's World has been in the top 15 most popular blogs on Entrecard for the past several months, and has spent most of the last two months in the top 5.

Direct traffic is another big category. That could include people getting here by clicking in their favorites folder, typing in my URL, or getting here some other way without a link. It could also inlcude other search engines or Entrecard hits that just don't show up in Google Analytics for whatever reason.

The other big traffic source in July was Stumble Upon, primarily because of my post about a hotel in SC. While the other sites provide fairly steady traffic, Stumble Upon traffic is often a surprising bonus.

CMF Ads is another advertising network. It sends me a realtively small amount of traffic, but considering I put very little effort into it, I'm okay with that. I can likely increase my traffic from CMF by being a more active participant in their forums, instead of the lurker I am. There are some great people in the network, so I'm happy to be part of it.

So how do they work together?

Entrecard allows members to earn credits by clicking on the Entrecard widget on other blogs (up to 300/day) and to earn credits by hosting an Entrecard widget on their own blog. Users also earn credits when someone clicks on the widget on their own blog. Users buy ads on other Entrecard members' blogs by spending the credits they earned.

The advantages are that it's free to participate and people will visit your blog just to earn their credit. Users can also see who has visited their blog and clicked on the widget, so they can "return the drop" by visiting that other blogger's site and clicking on the widget there.

The disadvantages are that all that clicking (or dropping) and loading web pages can take a bit of time. Also, some people deride the traffic as "junk" because people are coming just for the credit. I disagree with that view, but it is a legitimate argument. It's also a topic for another post.

On Adgitize, users earn points in a different way. The maximum number of points per day is 500. But there 5 ways users can earn points:

Posing a new Blog entry = 100 points
Visiting 100 Blogs (or just 50 if you are an advertiser) = 100 points
Being an advertiser = 100 points
Ad Views = up to 100 points
Page Views = up to 100 points

You earn money based on how many points you earn each day.

Users who host ads can have multiple Adgitize ads running on their blog at one time. The more ads that a blogger runs, the more points that blogger earns. I run a total of 9 ads on my blog for Adgitize sites. And the ads change each time you load the page.

Becuse I run 9 ads, that means for every page view I get, I get 9 ad views.

The advertising system is different from Entrecard. In Entrecard, only 1 ad runs for an entire day, and a blogger can host only one Entrecard widget. Plus, you get to approve or reject each ad individually.

In Adgitize, multiple ads run throughout the day and there is no interaction between the advertiser and the blogger. Bloggers do not approve ads in advance. However, they do have the option to manually reject ads and prevent them from showing up in the future.

So it's a different philosophy of running ads.

The other similarity is in "Clicking" Entrecard users get credits for each site they visit that has the Entrecard widget (up to 300/day). Adgitize users get points for each Adgitize ad they click on (up to 100/day or 50/day).

On Adgitize, if you are a paying advertiser ($14/month) you only have to click on 50 ads to get your 100 points a day. If you are not a paying advertiser, you have to click on 100 sites.

The key difference (besides the volume of clicks) between the two approaches, is what you click on. When a visitor comes to my site to get their Entrecard credit, they do it by clicking on the Entrecard widget in my side bar.

When they come to my site to get their Adgitize points, they click on a Adgitize ad, which opens a new tab or browser window with that new site. So the new site defiintely gets traffic.

The other difference in a level of anonymity. When an Entrecard member clicks the widget on my blog, I know who they are. It shows up in my Inbox so I can then go visit and click on their site.

I have no way of knowing who in the Adgitize network clicks on my site.

There are advantage and disadvantages to both those approaches. On Entrecard, you can get in the habbit of doing mutal clicks which means you visit a lower variety of sites. Also, that daily click becomes an informal currency. On Adgitize, I seem a wider array of blogs, but I don't know who my regular visitors are.

The other challenge with Entrecard is the volume of sites involved. Visiting 300 sites in a day means spending less time on each site than when you are just trying to visit 50 sites a day.

If you already use Entrecard, why would you want to ad Adgitize to the mix?

It seems like in addition to the 300 drops you might try to make on Entrecard each day, Adgitize is now asking for 100 (or 50) more.

Here's the trick -- many Entrecard users are also Adgitize users. So if you participate in both networks, you can come to Cromely's World, read my post, maybe make a comments, click on my Entrecard widget, and then also click on one of my Adgitize ads to be taken to another site.

Adding those Adgitize clicks doesn't result in any significant increase in time or work. And the ability to cut the number or clicks you need to do in half by becoming an advertiser makes it even easier.

If you don't want to do anything other than write your content, just become an advertiser and put the widget on your site.

Unlike Entrecard, the amount of clicking you do has nothing to do with how much traffic the site will bring you. Without clicking, you may not make as much money on the system, and you may not even clear your $14 ad cost, but you will definitely subsidize it by just being an advertiser, producing frequent posts, and hosting ads.

If you put both the Entrecard and Adgitize widgets on your blog, you also increase your traffic because those who participate in both networks will have an added incentive to come to your site.

Success in the Entrecard program requires more effort.

Success in the Adgitize program requires good blogging habbits, being an advertiser, and bringing in outside traffic.

What about CMF Ads?

CMF Ads is a little different from the other two. In CMF Ads, there is no clicking involved. You simply host ads and buy ads. You can purchase ads in the system with cash you bring to the system, or with cash you earn within the system.

When I started with CMF it was just by hosting ads. People within the network could choose to purchase an ad in my rotation. Each ad ran for a month. Multiple ads can run simultaneously. After a month, I had enough cash in the program to start buying ads on other sites. It generates a little bit of traffic, but that traffic requires zero effort on my part.

Success in the program, and increasing my earnings requires, that I increase my traffic. The more ads I sell (and have rotating through the three slots I make available) the more money I make.

A key metric advertisers look at is the cost per impression. To make that number look better, I can either lower my monthly cost (currently $.50 through the CMF network) or increase the number of impressions. Increasing the number of impressions means increasing the amount of traffic I get to Cromely's World.

And how to do I increase traffic?

Through advertising on Adgitize, advertising on Entrecard blogs, and visiting Entrecard blogs.

How do I earn more points in Adgitize? By generating traffic through the Entrecard program and by bring in more traffic through my ads on CMF, which I can buy because more people buy ads on my site through CMF.

How do I increase my traffic on Entrecard? By being an active participant, and hosting an Adgitize widget which encourages Adgitize/Entrecard members to visit my site.

The three systems work well together, and I'm happy to participate in all three.

What about Stumble Upon?

Stumble Upon is the big wild card. My Stumble traffic from July decreased my cost/impression in CMF Ads, and the extra ad/page views gave me more points in Adgitize.

Right now, I'm dependent on having sites "stumbled" by the right power users to generate those big spikes in traffic. My network isn't big enough yet. But it's getting there. My Stumble page is here.

I may have rambled a bit comparing and contrasting programs, but because of their differences, they work well together.

At least until the next big thing in blog marketing

Seesmic instead of Tweetdeck

I like Seesmic. It's a flexible alternative to Tweetdeck.

If you use or are interested in hearing about Twitter, you may find this post interesting. (And you should follow me if you don't already. I promise -- my Tweets are as sharp as a butter knife -- @Cromely)

If, like many people, you want the strip off your own ears when one more person mentions Twitter, I understand. Feel free to skip this one

Once you are following more than 50 people on Twitter, the homepage just isn't useful for reading tweets. There's no sense of organization. Hence, the proliferation of free applications that make Twitter easier to use.

Tweetdeck is a popular tool because it lets you create a limited number of groups of people you follow. You can separate work people, from family, from celebrities, etc.

But Tweetdeck is missing some important features. First, it shows all the columns at once. It's great if you always use it on a large monitor, but it's more challenging on a smaller laptop screen. The ability to create different tabs for different groups would be great, but it doesn't have that.

Second, you can have only about 10 columns. If you want to add another group, or always have a search running, you have to delete a group.

Seesmic doesn't have those problems. I can have as many groups as I want. I can close a column without deleting the group. I can hide all but the one I want, or I can see as many of them as I want and scroll across the screen.

Seesmic also lets me manage multiple Twitter accounts, which is nice.

It's not perfect. Tweetdeck has a nicer color scheme. It's also easier to add users to Tweetdeck groups. Tweetdeck lets me pull up a list of everyone I follow and choose who goes in each group. On Seesmic, I have to chose a person and then assign them to all the different groups I want to put them in. Since it doesn't show a list of everyone I follow, I have to wait until a Tweet comes through from that person, and then I can assign them.

Seesmic also uses more memory. Right now, Tweetdeck is using 116 MB of memory; Seesmic is using 274 MB.

There both strong products, but the productivity advantages I get from Seesmic make it the primary Twitter application on my personal computer.

What is your Twitter grade?

Mine is 70.

You can check yours at Twitter Grader. They consider the following things:

• The number of followers you have
• The power of this network of followers
• The pace of your updates
• The completeness of your profile
• ...a few others

What's the point? Well, if you are targeting Twitter as a marketing tool, I suppose this analysis could be helpful.

Or if you are looking for a new Internet benchmark to chase, you can try this one.

The Comedian's Dream

Mike Drucker is one of the comedians Jon works with on a regular basis. He is the other guy on the Play Cole Podcast. Fortunately, he's funny.

Did you ever wonder what comedians dream about? Mike tells you.