View Mobile Mobile Edition

The Price of Facebook Friendship

by Beth Milton | July 23, 2007 at 1:43 pm

The Price of Facebook FriendshipClass of 2011, look around you. In this room (ok, in this Facebook group), there are future friends, classmates, and colleagues. There are future boyfriends and girlfriends. And, Class of 2011, there just might be that special someone you end up suing in a Boston federal court for $1 billion.

That dream has come true for Harvard twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and friend Divya Narendra. This week in Boston they are taking former classmate Mark Zuckerberg to court in what will certainly go down as the trial of the century (only 93 more years to go): Facebook v. ConnectU.

What? Don’t remember ConnectU? Exactly the point.

According to an article in the Guardian, the claim is that when the Winklevosses and Narenda asked Zuckerberg to help out in designing their innovative “social networking site,” he

deliberately stalled its progress, stole the source code, design and business plan, then set up his own rival. Facebook sped away while their site, now called ConnectU, was still in the traps.

That’s what you get for trusting a psych major.

The intial suit was filed in September 2004–the requisite counter-suit in November 2004–and while the basic facts of the case haven’t changed, the stakes certainly have.

So, what’s stolen source code worth these days? Enough to ask the judge to “shut down Facebook and transfer all its assets to [you], plus damages.” Mmm. Damages. From a site with an estimated worth of at least $1bn (estimates run as high as $2bn).

IvyGate will keep you updated as the case progresses, but we’d love to hear from anyone who knew Cameron, Tyler, Divya, or Mark back in the day. Anonymity oh-so guaranteed.

P.S. ConnectU is still alive and kicking. Barely.

–BETHANY MILTON

Related Posts

Comments 10 Comments | Digg! Digg This | Facebook Share on Facebook | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post
Tags Read more: , ,

10 Responses to “The Price of Facebook Friendship”

  1. Comments well Says:
    July 23rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    there are definitely some columbia folks who knew mark back in the day from exeter, and i’m sure that is the case at the other schools as well, so it won’t be a problem to dig up some tales. i met him one time in front of my dorm during my sophomore year. seems like a decent fellow.

    this lawsuit is stupid for a number reasons. firstly, it isn’t true that even if these wankers had the idea for facebook, that they could have turned it into a billion dollar corporation. maybe they deserve a million (maybe) for the ‘idea’ but that’s more in the spirit of being nice than anything else. it’s not like zuckerberg took their idea and then patented it, but rather, he just made his own website. and finally, they are only bitching now that he actually is making money, not back then when the site didn’t run a profit and took away considerably from other things, such as school and life. these kids are greedy assholes. if connectU wanted so desperately to be the ‘real facebook’ they could have easily sent me an e-mail like facebook did in february of my freshman year.

  2. Comments BigRed Says:
    July 23rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    ConnectU will never have the power, familiarity, and popularity of facebook. I tried looking for anyone my age, but all I found were kids who were gonna be seniors this year. Plus, ConnectU cannot be used as a verb. For example, which sounds better?

    “So after I hooked up with that chick, I totally went back to my dorm and facebooked her”

    “So after I hooked up with that chick, I totally went back to my dorm and connectu’d her, then realized she was a dirty ho and went to Gannett to get tested for herpes”

    You see? Those whiners who are suing Mark Zuckerberg just need to accept the fact that they lost at life. Zuckerberg should just give them a nice cut of his $1 billion dollar fortune if anything.

  3. Comments okay Says:
    July 24th, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    the psych major pun was so (maybe unintentionally) witty that my head exploded

  4. Comments Divya Says:
    July 24th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    To everyone who thinks they’re just out for Zuckerburg’s moola, please note that the suit was filed in 2004, before facebook was anything to write home about. To put it in perspective, I believe that ‘the wall’ hadn’t even been invented yet at the time the suit was filed.

  5. Comments Y '08 Says:
    July 25th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

    If I remember correctly, in the fall of 2004 Facebook was still limited to around four schools. It didn’t even cover the Ivy League yet.

  6. Comments David Says:
    July 25th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    Y ‘08, you are way wrong there…
    Wash U definitely was not in the first 4 schools and I was on there in spring of 2004. If I read the userid correctly, wash u was the 31st school on there…

  7. Comments Y07 Says:
    July 26th, 2007 at 3:07 am

    I think thefacebook, as it was then called, came to Yale around January/February 2004. And it was indeed limited to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and (perhaps) Columbia.

  8. Comments Dart08 Says:
    July 26th, 2007 at 11:37 am

    To add to the list : Dartmouth had facebook in fall of 04. Before that, no clue as I wasn’t enrolled then.

  9. Comments DiabetesExplosion Says:
    July 27th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

    How it started:

    Feb 4: Facebook launched
    Feb 25: Columbia added
    Feb 26: Stanford added
    March 1: Yale added
    March 7: Dartmouth and Cornell added
    Pending: UPenn and BU to be added

    All in ‘04.

  10. Comments DiabetesExplosion Says:
    July 27th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    The source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=358092