The battle between Facebook and ConnectU has been raging since the beginning of Facebook but only in the past year or so did the battle enter the courtroom. A new article that’s been written for the magazine 02138 has brought to light more details about the ongoing battle between Facebook and ConnectU. The details paint a new picture of Mark Zuckerberg. As Matt Marshall points out, the article brings to light conflicting statements by Mark Zuckerberg.
Last year Mark Zuckerberg was quoted as saying “There is really good documentation of this: our code base versus theirs.” In the 02318 article it appears that most of the original Facebook code has since disappeared. The story of ConnectU and Facebook is one filled with numerous conflicts among the early participants. Additionally, the article does a great job at making it sound as though Zuckerberg obviously stole the idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen though in the technology world and execution is 99 percent.
In addition to ConnectU, Zuckerberg had conversations with Aaron Greenspan, another Harvard student, about yet another Harvard social network called houseSYSTEM. Ultimately, none of the people that Zuckerberg had spoken with have anything on paper though. Sucks to be them! It also appears as though Facebook was the best designed social network among the many being developed at Harvard at the time.
Mark Zuckerberg simply meshed the ideas of the many people he was speaking with and was successful in the execution. While the 02138 article makes Zuckerberg sound like a snake, let’s be honest, competition can get ugly. So whether or not Zuckerberg stole ideas from other people he was the one that wrote the code. If you aren’t a programmer in an early stage web startup, protecting an idea can be extremely challenging. The lesson learned here: get everything on paper.
My bet is that Mark Zuckerberg reused some of the code that he used for ConnectU. Most programmers do it. How much code was really reused though? I don’t think we’ll ever know. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg stole code from ConnectU?
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I think you're right, that he did reuse some of the code that was given to him by the ConnectU guys with the understanding that he would build ConnectU-not Facebook. My guess is that the original fb code, were it made available by Mark, would show this to be true-thus the disappearing act.Hopefully, FB users can combine this new article, the ensuing litigation, AND what they know about Beacon, and FB's miss use of user data to come to the conclusion that the leader of FB may not be on the up and up, thus, FB itself may not be either.
Comment by Nate Too — November 28, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
I think you're right, that he did reuse some of the code that was given to him by the ConnectU guys with the understanding that he would build ConnectU-not Facebook. My guess is that the original fb code, were it made available by Mark, would show this to be true-thus the disappearing act.
Hopefully, FB users can combine this new article, the ensuing litigation, AND what they know about Beacon, and FB's miss use of user data to come to the conclusion that the leader of FB may not be on the up and up, thus, FB itself may not be either.
Comment by Nate Too — November 28, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
The picture from the article tells the story:http://www.02138mag.com/asset/1065.jpgThese are the guys suing Zuckerberg. Ivy League competitve rowers who can't/won't write code.Put yourself in Mark's shoes. You're a geeky kid who learned to code, maybe reads Slashdot and are looking to do something cool on the web. These jocks notice a thing you made and say they want your help with their company. You get excited and agree.You've spent lots of time on the web and have developed a very good sense of what a good website is, and as you look over their idea, you realize that it is a start, but that you could do better. You wouldn't use the site they drew up, but with some tweaks and a good UI, it has potential.What do you do? Maybe you could go back to them and tell them how it could be done right.Maybe you feel like they don't have the touch and you do, so you don't feel any obligation to fix their project, and instead opt to make your own.Maybe they're arrogant pricks who wouldn't listen to you, and your sense of things is that if they don't know how to code, tough shit for them. I have no idea of course, but a few things jump out:They're ivy league jocks supported by their dad.They sunk $800,000 into their project through a web development firm (wow! where'd they get that? Why didn't they do that to start with? Somehow I doubt Zuckerberg would have done this)If this were a movie, they look the part of the guy that has everything, has no trouble getting laid, and gives Zuck a swirlie.None of that proves anything but it does kind of fit an image, no?
Comment by Charlie — November 28, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
The picture from the article tells the story:
http://www.02138mag.com/asset/1065.jpg
These are the guys suing Zuckerberg. Ivy League competitve rowers who can't/won't write code.
Put yourself in Mark's shoes. You're a geeky kid who learned to code, maybe reads Slashdot and are looking to do something cool on the web. These jocks notice a thing you made and say they want your help with their company. You get excited and agree.
You've spent lots of time on the web and have developed a very good sense of what a good website is, and as you look over their idea, you realize that it is a start, but that you could do better. You wouldn't use the site they drew up, but with some tweaks and a good UI, it has potential.
What do you do? Maybe you could go back to them and tell them how it could be done right.
Maybe you feel like they don't have the touch and you do, so you don't feel any obligation to fix their project, and instead opt to make your own.
Maybe they're arrogant pricks who wouldn't listen to you, and your sense of things is that if they don't know how to code, tough shit for them. I have no idea of course, but a few things jump out:
They're ivy league jocks supported by their dad.
They sunk $800,000 into their project through a web development firm (wow! where'd they get that? Why didn't they do that to start with? Somehow I doubt Zuckerberg would have done this)
If this were a movie, they look the part of the guy that has everything, has no trouble getting laid, and gives Zuck a swirlie.
None of that proves anything but it does kind of fit an image, no?
Comment by Charlie — November 28, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
I agree, we are not talking about internal espionage, we are talking execution of an idea. If these guys had such a great product, plan, etc. then whey don't we hear there names everywhere?Troy
Comment by Troy LeMaire — November 29, 2007 @ 11:35 am
I agree, we are not talking about internal espionage, we are talking execution of an idea. If these guys had such a great product, plan, etc. then whey don't we hear there names everywhere?
Troy
Comment by Troy LeMaire — November 29, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
[...] I covered an article in 02318 magazine that exposed more information about the ConnectU vs. Facebook legal [...]
Pingback by Magazine Article Draws Legal Motions From Facebook - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — November 29, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
Guys, whatever it is but this guy Mark did wrong thing by stealing the code and concept of the guys who trusted him with their pet project. As many guys like facebook today, even i do like it but that does not make what Mark did right. Disappearing of a site's initial codebase is not possible unless its done intentionally. Wherever he initially hosted the site facebook, those hosting providers make daily/weekly backups of your complete code. the owner himself(Mark) keeps backups, especially if you are such an expert like Mark.The guys supporting him, just think, what if it happened with you? You have an idea, you wrote some code and trusted a fellow student at your university with your code and full plan, and he steals everything from you, not just your idea, but your initial code too.I know ideas are worth a dime and execution/coding is most important. but he did steal the code too not just the plan and idea.All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.1) disappearing of facebook's initial code.2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.3) connectu's claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.4) Mark's working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook
Comment by john — April 7, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Guys, whatever it is but this guy Mark did wrong thing by stealing the code and concept of the guys who trusted him with their pet project. As many guys like facebook today, even i do like it but that does not make what Mark did right. Disappearing of a site's initial codebase is not possible unless its done intentionally. Wherever he initially hosted the site facebook, those hosting providers make daily/weekly backups of your complete code. the owner himself(Mark) keeps backups, especially if you are such an expert like Mark.
The guys supporting him, just think, what if it happened with you? You have an idea, you wrote some code and trusted a fellow student at your university with your code and full plan, and he steals everything from you, not just your idea, but your initial code too.
I know ideas are worth a dime and execution/coding is most important. but he did steal the code too not just the plan and idea.
All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.
1) disappearing of facebook's initial code.
2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.
3) connectu's claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.
4) Mark's working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook
Comment by john — April 7, 2008 @ 11:23 am
John, you are an absolute moron. You obviously have no working knowledge of the legal system by saying things like this:
"All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.
1) disappearing of facebook’s initial code.
2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.
3) connectu’s claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.
4) Mark’s working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook"
1) I'm a DR engineer, and I agree with your comments about the source code just "disappearing" – it does seem very fishy but it does not PROVE anything.
2) Facebook probably offered to settle because they want to keep the negative publicity to a minimum. The squeaky bolt gets the oil.
3) How do you know when ConnectU started complaining about Mark stealing their source code? Were you there when the guys from ConnectU called Mark asking about where their stuff was? I doubt it. Facebook started LONG before you joined up, so the actual beginning of Facebook and when you joined aren't exactly the same time. I can remember having to request my college be added to the list of schools so I could join the "network"… and I didn't go to a small school in the middle of nowhere.
4) Just because I work on something doesn't mean I automatically am responsible for the outcome. Not to mention, the whole spirit of capitalism (you know, what started this country) says that if you have a better product or service that you have every right to open a business similar to another. If your product or service is truly better than people will naturally give you their business. People who try to keep others from mimicking their business and corner the market obviously have no faith in the product or service.
Only a handful of people truly know what happened between the two companies, and it will stay that way. My personal thought is that Mark did not steal the source code from ConnectU. I'm sure that he did improve on ideas from others, but that's how most of the best inventions are made. Take the washing machine for example – people have been washing clothes since this country was started. Someone got the great idea to make a machine to do it for you, does that mean that the person who invented the washing machine should be in trouble because other people had the idea to wash clothes before he came along? No, that's absurd and so is the nonsense between Facebook and ConnectU. He was probably helping them, got some great ideas from them and decided to run with it. I don't blame him one bit. As far as the disappearing source code goes, I can see how he might have wanted that to get "lost" just prior to launching Facebook. It was ConnectU's fault for not having secure, redundant backups. Once data is lost you can point the finger all you want, but the trick is making sure it never truly gets lost.
Comment by Brenden — November 6, 2008 @ 1:03 am
Brendan,
You're just a dum ***!
Comment by Johnny Dice — October 2, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
I believe Mark stole the idea. But the other guys should of put stuff on paper. Sucks for them. i also believe that they should get a share of the money.
Comment by TayD.Lautner — October 14, 2010 @ 10:58 pm
Its funny how one kid could replace $800,000 worth of code in just a few months. Obviously he stole the idea, probably not the code but the trial and error and all of the grunt work in refining the process, the sign up process etc is what cost the most.
Its like a student writing a term test vs a professor writing a term test they wrote.
Bottom line is that nobody is that smart, its impossible for someone to accurate refine a code so quickly when it took others that were paid large sums of money years to produce.
Lets even look at this a different way, lets say Mark is this incredibly smart individual, but lets look at his history before facebook. Pretty much nothing significant nor creative that made a huge success. He stole the idea behind facemash from hotORnot but he used pictures of local students that he hacked from the harvard facebook pages. Ok lets give him credit for being sneaky and knowing to use locals instead of random people mashups.
Then he somehow comes up with facebook out of the entire scandal with connectU, makes it Harvard exclusive "unlike connectU". But then ever since then what has happened to facebook? Has it gotten any better? NO in fact its gotten worse, further refining, useless apps, more ads and overall junk. If anyone was really smart and looked at the real story we can clearly tell that Mark took the idea, ran with it and now he's just drifting on his billions of dollars. I mean hell what else is he supposed to do? Clearly there is nothing else but more members and more advertising to come.
Bottom line is that in my opinion, the mastermind with the initial idea despite their lack of programming skill deserves full credit. But thats not the world we live in, we are in an incredibly money driven society taught to cheat, steal and be as selfish as possible which is exactly what Mark did and I'm sure many of us would have done had we been faced with the same opportunity. He knew they could just kiss his a$$ because they had no way of proving he stole their idea. Im kind of surprised the Winklevoss brothers didnt hire a hit man for the job.
My very long 2 cents.
Comment by Andrew Silver — October 28, 2010 @ 2:43 am
the film 'social network', although just a film, does him absolutely no favours whatsoever. Probably legally and literally he didn't 'steal' facebook. However he perhaps may of never thought of it without the initial idea. What he did was genius, but it wasn't his genius ideas, just his genius computering skills. Yes many things were adapted from the initial idea, however what he did was cheating, and he will forever know that he is a cheat…you can tell the way he driven from how ridiculas facebook has got nowadays. You can see anything near enough…do anything. He is money driven, and the fact of the matter is, he gets away with it..nobody REALLY gives a toss who made facebook..
Comment by Victoria — October 30, 2010 @ 10:15 pm
on the otherhand though people copy ALL THE TIME. twitter, bebo, facebook and myspace all copy off each other. Its all the same idea. You copy something initial however as soon as you change one small detail it becomes a completely new concept. Didn't twitter copy tagging in posts? or was it the other way round? i'm unsure, but they changed the name. On twitter its not called 'tagging' so its legally a new idea.
Comment by Victoria — October 31, 2010 @ 11:41 pm
couldn't of been put better
Comment by Victoria — October 31, 2010 @ 11:43 pm
Actually, I just read that a ton of Mark Zuckerberg's e-mail and chat logs from 2003-2005 have been leaked. Turns out there's TONS of evidence that he really DID steal the idea for Facebook, lied to the ConnectU guys he was supposed to be coding for to deliberately string them along, and later even hacked into their site to sabotage it after he'd moved on the Facebook. He pretty much confesses to most of this to a friend in the e-mails and chat logs that were leaked, stating at one point that the ConnectU guys' biggest "…mistake was asking HIM to code it for them…" Read this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-f...
The stuff people argue about with regard to the veracity of the movie is mostly the psychology of the guy and whether he did it to get women or whatever. But it turns out the facts about what he did are pretty clear cut. Had the Winklevoss brothers only thought to put Zuckerberg on a written contract, they'd have won far more than a $65M settlement in court and would now own Facebook in my opinion.
Comment by Allen — February 14, 2011 @ 12:19 pm
Farm Animals
Comment by guest — July 13, 2011 @ 1:35 am
Sound like insider trading and corporate espionage if it were a corp but what do I know.
Comment by concord — January 31, 2012 @ 12:56 pm