I'd say Zuckerberg's crucial insight was "people will still use a social website even if you don't let them customise the look of their page".
Or "the right seed population for a social network is young rich sexually-active people — e.g. Harvard students, then other college students, then whoever they drag in."
Yeah, I think the initial exclusivity of Facebook really helped. I went to a school near Harvard at the time Facebook launched, and we were all vaguely aware of the site when it first launched as a Harvard-only site. It then expanded to include our school and a few others -- maybe ten or so, all quite prestigious -- and there was widespread adoption almost instantaneously on our campus. I think the sense of being invited to join an exclusive club had a lot to do with that. I don't know if Zuckerberg intended it, but playing on the elitism of college studen...
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