1. More than 1.3 billions Chinese are technically not on it,  unless one bypass the great firewall.
2. It's too time-consuming and not much real/decent work can be done when you're on it!
3. My few friends whom I got to know from VirtualTourist.com are on it, hence, I'm on it just to keep in touch with them :)
4. 2 great features - sharing of photos and videos (easier than any other sites! I was surprised I could just add Youtube links without having to copy the embed codes!). Not mine though, but I snooped around others' quite a bit, hehe...
5. It's Facebook, one of the major social media sites. No one can afford not to be on it or at least have a working knowledge of it!

• 6 ways journalists can use Quora as tool to report, share ideas, Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter.org, Jan. 12, 2011

• The big Quora question: What’s it good for?, Matt Wilson, Ragan.com, Jan. 14, 2011
• Quora and How to Become the ‘Next Big Thing’, Rob Brown, prandtheweb.com, Jan. 5, 2011
• What future does Quora hold for PR and marketing: Three ways you should use it more, and three new areas of innovation, Drew Benvie, Jan. 4, 2011
• Five ways Quora will impact PRs in 2011, Eb Adeyeri, LewisPR.com, Jan. 4, 2011

First of all it's statistically impossible for there to be more geniuses in China than there are people in the United States. Statistically 1 in 50 people is a genius - at least as it's defined by Mensa, and that's probably generous. Thus China would need 50 times as many people as the United States to have their geniuses exceed our population. Alas, they only have four times as many.


It is this sort of blatant disregard for facts and basic science that makes The Social Network such a great story, because - so much of it is concocted.


Its creator even says so with this marvelous nugget that comes straight out of wikipedia: "Screenwriter Sorkin has been candid about his objective: to tell a compelling story, rather than slavishly following facts. "I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling," Sorkin told New York magazine. "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy’s sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?""


Then there are lots of reviews that talk about Zuckerberg's character. Here is the best "It is the code of platitudes and white lies that allow most people to move through society without continually upsetting everyone they meet. Zuckerberg, as portrayed, does not speak that language, and by giving voice to his unfiltered thoughts, continually upsets almost everyone he meets."


Someone told me that Zuckerberg's character was an asshole, but he is actually a very special kind of asshole. Of course he was an intelligence snob and creativity snob, thinking he was better and more important than others around him - including his girlfriend, and not hiding that disdain. Of course, he was also entirely selfish, not caring about invading others privacy to steal their pictures, and not caring about objectifying women - creating a site where the attractiveness of Harvard women could be distilled down to a single number using a chess ranking algorithm - - he didn't care about offending women or stealing their intellectual property - he simply wanted to make a name for himself. So we have a selfish guy, who's out for himself who will do what it takes to advance.


[spoilers below]


He gets this idea for a Harvard dating site - exclusive to Harvard students - from the Winklevoss twins, and like the seflish, self-promotional guy that he is, steals their idea and improves it, but gives them no credit and deceives them into thinking he's working for them, and this idea eventually morphs into Facebook.


He solicits investment from his best friend, and when his best friend gets jealous because he forges business ties with the charismatic Napster founder, Sean Parker and wants to push the company in a different direction, he stops funding the company. Mark is so annoyed that he does something highly unethical, attempting to totally cut his friend out of the business - again - not the hallmark of the nicest person in the world.


The movie closes with Zuckerberg on top of the world, appearing likely to settle lawsuits with the twins and his former best friend, but alone, with his computer, connected to everyone, yet unable to connect.


It's completely worth seeing because of the rich, beautiful portrayal of the Zuckerberg character, and the amazing life that the script has.... Highly recommended...

I should add of course that the Zuckerberg character may be totally different from Mark in real life. In the movie the character is constantly bombarded by thoughts and his mind is filled with activity, and he's so absorbed in his own thought that he fails to connect with those around him. He's also awkward in general - not as effective at presenting himself as he could be, and that's part of the magic of this portrayal.

• Respect the search engines: they use sophisticated algorithms written by smart people to provide billions of users with helpful results every second of every day.  Don't try to tame them.
• Be search-engine friendly: so many sites are not that you'll quickly gain a competitive advantage by working constructively with the engines.
• Build a great site: websites are not marketing brochures.  Make great content, do it often, and both visitors and search engines will hold your site in high regard.
• Focus on content: the same reason why you visit a site repeatedly is the same reason your visitors will become loyal to your site -- content is truly King.

I was a big fan of Fight Club whenever I got to see it earlier this year, and while I wasn’t as big a fan of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, it’s undeniable that the guy has a serious knack for telling great stories. When I first heard the concept of making a film about the Facebook, I immediately assumed it was just going to be a quick cash grab. That might have been the case had another team taken on the job, but Fincher and his expert writer Aaron Sorkin craft an impeccable narrative. They take what could have been a mess of a story about what could have been a boring “fable”, and mold it into one of the year’s best stories that will leave you wondering around every turn what’s about to happen and how we end up in that trial room. “Why does Eduardo hate Mark so much?” “Why is Mark so bitter towards, well, everyone!” “What’s up with that one Winklevoss’ haircut?”-MOST of those questions are given slowly but surely by Fincher and Sorkin, slowly pulling the rope and leading you farther and farther in. It’s sort of hard to spoil a movie about the fate of the website I currently have in another tab (spoiler alert Facebook exists), and I’m not even going to attempt to or even try to encapsulate all the great themes of the film.

While Fincher’s film iterates the way our film looks at social situations in an age of blackberries and iPhones instead of written mail and actually talking on the phone, it’s themes are timeless. Isolation, betrayal, love, anxiety, the greater good, the fear of failure, the euphoria of success and how it can all come crumbling down are all themes effortlessly snatched up and put on display for the cinematic world to see within a two hour running time. The film gracefully transitions between the trials and the events that led up to them, and by the end of the film you’ve gotten this majestic sense of time to where you feel like you know the complete, tragic story, and you’re not even ready to leave the theater. While some may not consider the idea of a “Facebook movie” to be all that interesting, the end result surprisingly came out to be one of the most compelling, if not always factual, film events of the year, getting to see a master of storytelling tell a masterful story. Sure, it may not be all that accurate, and to be honest, I don’t care. A good movie’s a good movie, and they’re still telling the same story, even if some things are a little Hollywood-ized, although to tell the truth the film’s not as fictionalized as some make it out to be. When it came down to it it’s really a beautiful mold of a classic story within a new frontier, it’s like a cinematic hybrid. It’s the quirk of Juno meets the intrigue of The Bourne Identity, the board room fights of A Few Good Men but over intellectual property. Some have compared the film to classics like Citizen Kane, and to be honest they’re not far off. This is going to be a film that’s remembered for quite some time, and I’d be shocked if it didn’t win Best Picture come March. It also doesn’t hurt that Fincher has the time to put in some style for good measure. There’s a good bit of really effective comedy that works really well when the dialogue of hundreds of millions of dollars lawsuits isn’t rambling on, and the fact that Fincher paints a lot of the film in a gray-ish, bland tone is understated but is still effective. In my American Literature course I’m enrolled in now there’s a term we’ve been discussing, and it refers to when an author brings the finale of the film to reference all the film itself in a seemingly perfect way that “wraps up” the movie into a nice little package. Forrest Gump did this with the feather, The Princess Bride did it with the grandfather’s final line of dialogue, and Fincher does it in this film with an ending that leaves some glimmer of hope in a pretty desolate scenario. The Social Network is a magnificent movie. It speaks to our generation by not only giving a “origin story” to one of the biggest facets of our day-to-day life, but by also delving into some of the problems that people my age deal with. “How do I fit in?”, “Where am I supposed to do with my life?”, “How do I get people to like me and not ruin every single close relationship I have?” It doesn’t stop there, and that’s what sets it apart, it still combines that with an incredible cast and some true filmmaking genius. Don’t listen to my words though (he said at the end of the review), just go see this film. Even if you hate the actors, the director, whatever, see it for the commentary it has for society. If you hate society, see it for the film-making. It’s a complete package. I don’t say this very often, but there’s nothing much wrong with this movie, unless you’re going in not a fan of the idea of a Facebook movie and you also just so happen to be a person that doesn’t like good film. The Social Network is going to be a tough act to beat for the rest of the Fall, it’s an unforgettable masterpiece of film-making genius that is going to be on many people’s minds, and hopefully a lot of people’s Twitter feeds for quite some time.