Kurt Eichenwald Facebook Quotations

At any time of day, hundreds of different versions of Facebook are running on the Internet - with a changed color here, a moved button there - and the user response to each variation is measured. And the same is done with advertising.

As late as 2007, Facebook was still trying to figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. An advertising space seemed to be the obvious answer, but how that would tap into the massive value of the personal data uploaded to the company every day remained a puzzle.