I went to see the new movie "The Social Network", the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, this morning. I went to Century Cinema 16 in Mountain View with a friend for 11am show. When I got there, the place was nearly empty. A few nice old ladies were in front of us to buy tickets, and they didn't even know what Facebook was. The theater was less than half-full, mostly with the same age group people as these ladies.

Then, when we came out, the theater lobby was BUZZING with full-house people, many sitting around on the floor eating their late lunch. I thought, "OMG, good thing we came early. Friday afternoon is a busy time!"

Then, the more surprise came when I got out of the building - a HUGE line, going all around the building, and much more were just arriving on the phalanx of black buses. It reminded me of the early Spongebob episode, in which zillions of anchovies on the tour bus stormed into Krusty Krub and horrified Mr. Krub muttered "anchovies..."

They turned out to be Facebook employees. I asked one of them and confirmed, because they all had employee badges, but the badge did not clearly said the company name. My friend, an "industry insider", also told me that Google people were supposed to come, from the nearby Googleplex.

So I took a photo of the line with my Android phone and quickly uploaded to Twitter. Then when my lunch was over, I noticed that another friend, a WSJ reporter, asked me if they could use the photo for the article, and confirmed a few points. I said, sure, go ahead. A few more minutes later, it was already up on WSJ site. Wow, that was quick!!

As for the movie itself, I liked it a lot. I already read the original novel "Accidental Billionaire" and knew the story. The film basically follows the story, with a few original additions, like the opening and the ending, which I LIKED A LOT. Characters, lines and behaviors are very well written, constructed and acted. I think the main actor Jesse Eisenberg did a great job in acting this "nerdy jerk", maintaining the viewers' sympathy till the end. And the contrasts - East vs. West, geek vs. suits, traditional ethics vs. entrepreneurs' justice, which were also vividly depicted in the original novel, were visually stunning in the film.

Go watch it. Even if you don't know Facebook, it is a good movie.

Michi