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Fortune
Fortune
Jessi Hempel

UNCOVERED: How facebook is taking over our lives | History Defined

A man in a black zip-up stands gesturing out to his left in front of background with a Facebook logo (Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Facebook held no appeal for Peter Lichtenstein. The New Paltz, N.Y., resident had checked out so-called social networking sites before, and he wasn’t impressed. (“MySpace,” he recalls, “was ridiculous.”)

A chiropractor and acupuncturist, Lichtenstein was already a member of a few professional web-based user groups. The last thing he needed was another message box to check. Then a buddy posted a link to photos from a trip to Thailand and India on his Facebook page and flatly refused to distribute them any other way. The friend’s assumption: Duh – everyone’s on Facebook.

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