A new figure has emerged to lay claim to the original idea for Facebook, and this person has the email proof to back it up. Aaron Greenspan, a former classmate of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, recently told The New York Times that his college social networking system launched in 2003, houseSYSTEM (then nicknamed "the Face Book"), pre-dates both Facebook and Con nectU (the company that recently attempted to claim credit for the creation of Facebook), and that Zuckerberg was an early user of houseSYSTEM.
Greenspan says he has the emails to prove his claims, but despite Facebook's multi-billion dollar valuation, the programmer seems uninterested in pursuing the matter further. Instead he's looking for a publisher for his memoir that details the entire series of events. If sold, the book might work as a cautionary tale, but bestsellers are seldom made from could-have-been anecdotes without a dramatic story arc and smash bang ending. For now, we suggest Greenspan focus on selling code and improving his CommonRoom site and leave the memoir publishing for later when there's a better story to tell.
