Mark Zuckerberg Tells 60 Minutes: “Beacon Makes Facebook Less Commercial”

I thought the article was interesting. His point about a banner ad for Bloomingdales vs. a Beacon story was pretty well explained.

@Silicon Valley Guy: The banner ad wouldn’t be in your News Feed, while Beacon ads are.

To the editor: “to night” is spelled “tonight”

I think MZ is for one way too young to run a company of this scale. @ he has no clue about talking on behalf of facebook and he is a little arrogant child.

Yeah he may be a very sharp programmer but that doe’s not mean you can represent a company. He should sit behind his computer and code, leave the business end to the big boys that what i think

“The ripping the scab off the wound moment”

Graphic.

Jared,
I’ve had about 2 hours sleep in the last 2 days, fixing but give me a little leeway.

Amit
might be more of an Australian saying, fairly common to me but apologies if its not widespread.

Unimpressed about his responses.

Zuck will be replaced as CEO sometime in ‘08. This interview was funny. The answers he gave seemed flat and without any substance. And yes he is in denial about Beacon.

To be honest I boycott Facebook. Yes I lose contact with many friends and yes it is a huge inconvenience. But the minute open social takes a new step forward I will join. Mark Zuckerberg did steal code from connectu (obvious from his responses); look at the repercussions of this action. He becomes a billionaire and connectu is left pretty much a dead company. I for one will not support this, and I urge others to do so. One great thing about the internet is that everything DOES depend on the power of the individual. MZ has constantly abused his new power in FB and I feel like he is really no longer a web 2.0 visionary. He stole the idea, and fails repeatedly to uphold the idea of an open internet.

And props on the story Duncan Riley!!!!

Meaning, of course he would never truly admit that beacon thing was any mistake — and henceforth, his previous apologies weren’t really for real.

Mate a made about million spelling mistakes in my last post.

I believe it is crucial for the further growth of this company that he is replaced, he is bringing an evil vibe to company. Somethings not right about facebook, i get the feeling they are plotting or scheming!

Johnny

@ MIke Redston I am with you 100% !!!!

Every generation has it’s hula hoop. This is a really big one. I think the big tragedy of the entire social networking thing is Classmates.com

If I wasn’t such a scrooge I would pay the few dollars and get access to many old friends, but I can’t do it on principal.

It’s otherwise impossible to find those same high school buddies on facebook.

What I can’t understand is why the hell they have 400 employees? What are all these monkeys doing?

In your post, you have “Larry Brin” and “Sergei Page”.

I think you mean “Larry Page” and “Sergei Brin”…

Matt
I’m not even sure what day it is God bless redbull.

Did Facebook lose a significant number of members over the Beacon “issue?” No? Then what’s the story? The story is that there is no story, Facebook has 60 million members and fewer care about this “issue” now than ever. I don’t think Zuckerberg needs any advice.

Mike D
the story is that Zuckerberg is thinks that Beacon makes Facebook “less commercial.”

Mark should of accepted the billion dollar buy out when he had the chance, because Facebook is going to go down in a giant ball of fire. Every social network has, and Facebook is no exception. I do not own a Facebook for several reasons, one of which is the lack of consideration for the user experience. I think greed ruins any company too, like MySpace Facebook is getting greedy with ads and the income they are producing. I think they are literally gambling all their careers away

Like a car crash, it’s hard to look away.

i thought he did a good job– exactly how you’d want to come off to the masses who don’t live and breathe this industry. he furthered his companies message and reinforced his own image in the process.

as to beacon making facebook less commercial; it gives me a chuckle, but is a perfectly valid marketing spin.

-mike

I think he lacks the humility of someone that can truely lead a company of this nature forward. I must give props to him bringing it this far, however I found him arrogant and with a lot of growing up to do…

Had never known who he was till now and has largely put me off face book as a company…

People should watch the piece themselves. Not sure this blog entry is an unbiased report of the interview.

I think the real story is….why is techcrunch so horrible at being objective? Isn’t it time you guys grew up over there?

“Facebook must reach a tipping point this year in growth”

I would say at 60 million users they have already reached the tipping point and are continuing to grow.

I think overall it was a fair piece on 60 Minutes.

I have a few video excerpts of the interview here:
http://facereviews.com/2008/01.....tes-videos

Cheers!

Wade
Honestly I went into the interview thinking I’d write a post in defense of him and about how well he did under the spotlight. It wasn’t to be, no bias in that but it’s hard to spin a somewhat mangy dog of an interview as being brilliant.

As for growing up Wade, get your head out of your arse and smell the truth cheese. It wasn’t a good interview…he struggles with humility and thinks he did no wrong with Beacon, that’s the way it came over. Could it be defended on the basis of his youth, yes, but it still doesn’t make it good.

Rodney
I didn’t say it wasn’t a fair piece from 60 Minutes, indeed I was very impressed by the way it started with fluff then let the hard questions fly.

The part about surpassing he google guys was quite clearly more like a comment than a question. You guys in the media love spinning stuff around.

That was like watching paint dry. The questions were not interesting. Anyways, he seems like a chill guy and is handling things just fine. Love when he said, “was that a question.” funny sh*t!

first of all, i’d never seen mark zuckerberg speak before. he’s a huge dork.

@Mike Redston, your whole comment is absurd. you boycott facebook because its founder is accused of stealing code/ideas from guys years ago under circumstances you don’t know or understand. you can’t know the details of the situation (you weren’t there–picking apart MZ’s responses in a stilted 60min interview does not count).

judge the product and not the man, let the courts figure the rest out.

also @duncan–I agree it was a terrible interview, but I think that you might be mistaking crappy responses for pride on MZ’s part. I think he was plenty humble, just inarticulate. while he was clearly trying to play both parts–the on-message PR suit and the hip teenager–he kept mostly quiet.

Facebook lost its appeal and usefulness to serious people the minute 1) it opened up its API and 2) it became mainstream whereby every teen has an account. It has turned into a popularity contest where members try to outdone the other by adding more and more stupid content (made possible by the open API) to their homepage. When it’s no longer about communication with one another but more about promotion of oneself, it is no longer social networking — the very aspect that made it successful in the first place is gone. At some point, people will get tired of it… and switch.

Stop being a Zuck hater and start being a Zuck lover.

omfg i smell the bullshit a mile away.

who wouldn’t sleep on a floor for 6 years to reap a $5+ billion payday at the end of it?

it’s like Steve Jobs taking a $1 salary, meanwhile his options fetch him $100M+ yet all the media can focus on is his salary charity.

$1 salary — as long as FTC or SEC says nothing about it… after all, what can they say?

Seriously I am disappointed that Leslie didn’t ask Mark about his business card “CEO…bitch”. What an arrogant ass he is.

This post is seriously based solely on opinion and flowed. Go catch some sleep and then read and rethink your post again.

I thought MZ did well and Facebook is doing quite well with him at the helm. Yes, MZ took a base concept that was developed by two other guys, improved upon it, and ran with it. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. And he also negotiated himself into this position while managing to keep a considerable amount of equity in Facebook. This kid as you guys put it is smarter and has more business aptitude than most.

Facebook does need to figure out monetization before they go for an IPO, but the company is doing more things right than most companies. And they will get monetization right if I can help it.

I do not work for Facebook, nor am I a big MZ fan, but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due.

F MZ in the A

This interview was long due, Facebook has become quite phenomenal during 2007, I can hardly think of a conversation with a new person I met where we haven’t mentioned facebook at some point.

When you think of it, Facebook has moved into the mainstream faster than any other technology, even Google.

He sleeps on a mattress on the floor? We call those things “futons”!

Zuckerberg seems like a grade-A knob.

By claiming “Beacon makes Facebook less commercial”, Mark is saying that Facebook does not aspire to be like other yucky banner-sewage sites like, MySpace, which Facebook is often compared with. I was hoping Lesley Stahl would ask him, “What’s wrong with banner ads? Everybody has them.”

Either Mark is shy or he resents being compared to the Google boys, but, in terms of Beacon, clearly he was thinking along the line of coming up with a “revolutionary ad platform”, which Google has successfully deployed with its text/search-based ads.

As for lawsuits, his answer was mature — the lawyers are taking care of it. Let’s face it, it is doubtful that the guys who are suing him could say, with a straight face, that every single line they wrote were original stuff, and Mark just took them. Come on, fellas, who is “totally original” these days?

I think for not living lavishly like he suggested in a 1-bedroom apartment it’s pretty damn funny that he’s using a ThinkPad Reserve laptop. That thing is like $5,000. I understand a $5,000 computer with sick specs but that machine is a ton of money for a cute little leather casing. Pffft.

We all have our opinion about FB and MZ but people, he’s a 20+yr old guy, regardless of how big a company he now leads, as such how else would you have expected his answers to be?

What the hell is up with these bazarre “arrogant” comments? Clearly all the same person. Jealousy eh?

Unless you have been in the spotlight, I think a lot of the comments are unfair. As A PR/marketing person and one who has been on camera I think he did an ok job. I know he could have done a lot worse, when all is said and done.

I think Facebook has reached its tipping point as it’s growing at 200,000+ users a day. Facebook isn’t perfect and even when people know some company’s lie… people still use the service, why should Facebook be any different. Beacon wasn’t cool, but then again I actually read the user agreement and opted out of the process when I could.

To many people here and online take things at face value and don’t think for themselves. Mark is 23 and running this company. Will he end up like the Google guys and bring in a CEO or will he be more like Jeff at Amazone and still get to run the show more then 10 years later is anyone’s guess. However, I do know this. Facebook is a here to stay for the next while. If you like Facebook; use it and if not then don’t use it.

I thought it wasn’t really that great of an interview….

Everett: I have no idea and MZ+FB affects my life very little, but wouldn’t the question of how well he did be better put to the “400 people” MZ is “feeding?” How do you think they’d answer?

It’d be interesting to be in that office tomorrow morning.

Duane@45: He’s no Budd Dwyer, that’s for sure. However, contrary to both you and #18, it takes more than users to make a company. Friendster had a lot of users for its day.

Come on now, he’s TWENTY THREE! TWENTY FUCKING THREE! He’s a kid, a punk, just like you and I were at that age and just like most of the other young turks in 2.0. (He just got a whole lot luckier.) His time will come don’t worry…

@EH I’m not sure who Budd Dwyer is being only in my 20s as well. Friendster had a lot of other issues as well, mostly which was scaling the site. Facebook doesn’t have that issue and is more then moving past Beacon as the days go on.

It does take more the users to make a site successful, but Facebook has that and money right now and for the time being it’s successful. Would you or anyone else on here have done better on 60 minutes tonight? I know I wouldn’t have. Everyone loves to beat down on the guy, but I doubt most here could have done a better job in his position.

Is Reekn’ Beacon, by definition, commercial? Therefore, doesn’t it follow that taking the pre-Beacon Facebook and adding Beacon to it can only make Facebook MORE COMMERCIAL. Wow, I mean it’s like he’s calling the public stupid. I mean who else would believe that taking a commercial thing and adding it to anything makes that anything less commercial. Time to add this post to my Facebook rant page (ok, it’s at least partially self-serving): http://www.buzzpal.com/facebook_rant.html

It comes down to this, MZ created a very good product, facebook has grown by itself my 2 year old cousin could have been CEO in its growth stage. Now the time has come for this young arrogant tool to step away if he really has the best intentions for facebook at heart.

I am the CEO and founder of a start up im 27 and i can understand that you put so much into it and for the lucky few that do become huge, it can be hard to step back from the helm but if you truley want the best for your product I believe you need a proven captain!

Please wish me luck im very close to closing a first round of investment for 10 million Australian dollars. It’s the hardest thing I have ever done.

MZ is not a CEO he is a great progammer.
He will single handedly destroy facebook if he continues to act the way he does. Its like facebook is an extension of his penis lol.

Step down

Well said, Duane.

@chrisco, he didn’t think the public is stupid any more than you sounding stupid here.

I find him very nervous. And I cannot understand why.
His movements and the way he talks are mechanical.
But he seems a nice guy and he is also too young.
He has the future in front of him.
He has done great so far and all chances are open.

If he expects you to believe that adding something commercial (Beacon) to something commercial (Facebook) makes things less commercial, then he is indeed calling you stupid.

About MZ being proud when saying “Is that a question?”, I dont agree. It seemed more like he was on extra adrenaline and merely trying to keep up with the publicity. Most of the answers were of course composed by the PR department. Surely he didn’t mean that he would agree being bigger than Brin&Page, it is more likely he meant the opposite.

That’s not the full interview, its only the first 13 minutes.

Whatever, I still think fb sucks.

I used to be in Awe of MZ for being a young guy who went out there and just created a tool for people not for profit but now with the rather sinister Peter Thiel lurking in the background and the conspiracy theorists mumbling about CIA influence through the investment from Greylock Venture Capital (one of Greylock’s senior partners, Howard Cox, is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel being the Venture Capital fund set up by the CIA post 9/11) I find it hard to believe anything he says. His comments about Beacon seem to compound this. I think if he just came out and said “look we want to make money now, you can’t use our fantastic network tool without giving us a little back” then I think people would respect that.

I thought the piece made Zuckerberg look highly unprepared to lead a company of Facebook’s magnitude. His imagination, technical skills, and timing made him highly successful. He deserves plenty of credit for that success. None of the things that made him successful have prepared him to be CEO of his company. Decision making is rooted in judgment, and judgment is rooted in experience…not necessarily measured in years as much as in circumstances. What’s the biggest thing MZ ever led before FB? What’s the most complicated PR problem he’d ever encountered before Beacon? At the end of the piece my wife and I looked at each other and said, “not ready.” Oh, and comparing him with Larry and Sergey is absurd.

Chuzpa! The light source is creating that kind of wealth in 4 years!….Let’s face it, his message is loud and clear…Facebook rules….

Definately shows his immaturity and his inability to lead a billion dollar company. (If you even think it is worth $1 billion)

interesting karma for the young kid, a lightning rod, with a company that defines everything wrong about our time…

it will get zapped sooner or later, as will the culture it was born into…

Honesty… Some honesty would do really good. He is asked whether it is difficut to earn money doing online advertising and he didnt say yes… he could have said: “Yes it is a challenge. Look at Google, it took them many years to figure that out. We are working 24/7 trying to figure out how to make money from a great service. Sometimes we will **** up. If anyone has ideas, dont hesitate to e-mail me at…”

Maybe not that honest… but almost.

There really was nothing much new in this CBS interview.

Facebook knows how to monetize. Just because they don’t tell you their plan, doesn’t mean that they do not have one. I am excited for the day when Facebook Search has a higher percentage of the search business than Google.

I think all of the negativity is hogwash! You people must just be jealous. Sure, MZ is not the most experienced CEO, but he’s got an incredible product. He’ll make some mistakes here and there, but so far he’s doing fine…obviously! How many of you are running a company that has been valuated at $15 billion???

^ i agree

Writing code and running a Billion dollar biz are not quite the same.
MZ may appears to not yet have the required skills to lead.
MS has taken apart and remember.
Google has Eric Smichdt, who is an experienced executive.
Facebook may need some leadership in order to execute plan to monetize the traffic and keep users happy.

Great read on the lawsuits:

http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1724.html

1. You are not a share cropper- Break the chains
2. Be a rebel
3. Change the game
4. Believe in the possibilities
5. Do good
6. At adelph.us “Open” means-
1. Whenever possible using Open Source applications
2. Whenever possible offering the hosted use of these applications free of charge to members
3. Always writing code using existing Open Source standards that are not proprietary or owned by a company ie (Face Book and the rest)
4. Empowering the community (Individuals, Groups, Non Profits, and Companies) with tools that help them to save time and resources
5. Evening the playing field
6. Giving back to the community
7. Giving back to Open Source
8. You control all access of your account
9. You control all access to your content
7. You have the right to control the conversations that you have with Companies
1. You have the right to choose the who, what, when, and where of this conversation
2. Companies must contribute to the community before they can be included in any conversation
3. Whenever possible the entire community should benefit from these conversations
8. You control your account -
1. We will never give your personal data to any third parties without your permission
2. You have control over who has access to your profile information
3. You have control over who has access to your content
4. At anytime you are free to delete your account
5. When you delete your account it is cleared from our Database

william, what are you on?

MZ’s delusional. Facebok board better hire someone COMPETENT to head that giant Titanic.

Mark seemed a little smug despite his carefully placed “sleeping on the floor” and “no new clothes” conditions.
I’m not buying into Beacon because Mark is a “humble guy”.

Mike Redston #9, I’ve put my Facebook account on ice for the same reasons. It’s weird how in some circles Facebook is now virtually replacing the open internet. I don’t want to be part of it and don’t understand why this poser keeps getting a free pass.

I think we’ve got to remember that Facebook, like every other online company out there, is trying to figure out how to best monetize their user base. Combine that with a CEO who’s incredibly young (may be smart as hell, but nothing can replace actual leadership experience) and we’re bound to see more interviews like the one yesterday.

I can only imagine the pressue that Mark Z is under right now, especially as the company continues to grow…from both an employee and user base. I don’t know FB’s hiring plans for 2008, but can only hope and assume that their planning on bringing in more experience leaders who can help to take the company to the next level. He’s definitely coming off as a bit arrogant (although the humility card kind of worked), but man, the whole thing just cries for a seasoned leader to come in. Google seemed to recognize this issue when they brought Eric in as CEO.

John Lusk
WhitePages.com

You can see the video of the ENTIRE 60 minutes facebook piece here.

http://facereviews.com/2008/01.....tes-video/

You have to give him credit for creating a company who now has over 60 million users. Who knows what it’s really worth and who knows how long it will last, but at this point the kid is smart in how he created and marketed facebook. Is he smart enough to make it last? Who knows. Some people are smart at the start but get too arrogant too fast. He might be getting too arrogant to fast, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to somebody.

What I do find funny are people who make excuses for him that he’s only a 24 year old kid. Yet half the same people condemn 20 something year old sports stars and actors/muscians all the time. I guess one 24 year old isn’t the same as another 24 year old. If his excuse is that he’s only 24, then the same standard should be held for other 24 year olds that people condmen when they lose a game or come out with a bad album or movie or come off as ‘fake’ in some interview. You can’t condemn others at the same age for saying something stupid or not saying anything and then say “Oh he’s only 24″ when it comes to MZ.

It was a lame interview, plain and simple. He came off as arrogant and nothing more than a suit, and they came off as asking a few harder questions, but nothing too difficult.

I have to agree with Duncan on his assessment of the interview. I watched the interview live on 60 minutes prior to reading his post so my views on it were unbiased and raw.

For me, I thought the Google question was the most awkward moment. I couldn’t believe that Mark didn’t discount the statement whether he believes that is the case or not. He could learn somethings from presidential candidacy campaigns and the power of appearing “humble”. That response clearly showed his age and lack of business experience. Further, there is no way that I could swallow that MZ has surpassed Larry and Sergey. The average Joe may swallow that but anyone that works in technology or follows the advancements of the web as a medium should easily be able to distinguish the huge gap between the two parties. I also think its highly unlikely that Facebook will become the first place people search as was stated in the interview by Stahl. And there is another major difference between Google and Facebook, Google has executed on a successful methodology for generating revenue (Adwords, AdSense, diversified investments, etc.).

Regarding Beacon, I believe his answers were less tumultuous only because they seemed very prepared (by attorneys no less, i’m sure).

I use Facebook, but as a business person and a developer, there still remains to be seen something significant in terms of impressing me with the site/network. For now, it seems to be an overly inflated price tag for a site with potential.

I though Zuckerberg did a decent job. He was obviously nervous, but I don’t think he was being smug when asked about the Google founders, I think he really did want to know if there was a question in there - How is he bigger? Fame, Fortune, Influence?

All in all that 60 minutes piece was a huge win for F8. Why? Because most people who saw that probably had no idea what F8 was before the interview, and now they have a bunch of grandmas who will now go sign up on F8 to find out where their grandkids are, and who is buying what kind of scarves. I haven’t watched 60 minutes in probably 5 years, but I watched that piece. Add in the comments from the analyst that F8 may be a more efficient way to search when planning a trip, and it was clearly a win for the F8 camp.

Keep in mind that Z-berg is not a billionaire just yet, because he’s not liquid. That should have been his response to the question about Page/Brin - “No, those guys are liquid and I’m not. ” Or he could have just said “We will bury Google” ala Krushchev - boy that would have been sweet.

Seems to be the poster child for all the teenagers telling the old farts to get out of the way cause you don’t “get it”. Trouble is if you want to claim you “get it”, you can’t have it both ways: you can’t expect leniency for your immaturity if you think our ignorance is the problem. Maybe the old farts have just seen the Emperor’s New Clothes already, and we remember the last dot bomb. Funny thing is, last time round it was all about building numbers and “users” before figuring out how to make money. Didn’t work then either.

It is necessary to see the reality. It is easier, colorful and advisable to use my space…

Yawn. Facebook is for kids. LinkedIn is for adults.

Needs to learn how to be more human, just way too calculating and arrogant. This will continue to turn off mature users.

That interview made me wince. Seriously, how can FB’s VC’s let him run the company? If the FB investors didn’t feel sick after that interview they must be drinking the kool-aid. Smart but no experience equals BEACON! I think the question that needs to be asked is who will the VC’s bring in to run Facebook?

Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim has an interesting counter-point to this view Duncan, over at http://www.marketingpilgrim.co.....rview.html

Perhaps the context of the statement could have been included?

good point Burgo.
looks like andy’s done a smoother job of it.

I kinda went on and on and on and on on and on….
http://weareindia.blogspot.com.....s-guy.html

That was hard to watch. The bitch gave the worst interview I’ve ever seen. They put no time into those questions, she was completely unknowledgeable and it was meant for my grandparents.

@ Naysayer #85- You are a dumbass. VC’s would camp on Zuckerbergs lawn so they could invest. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.

Zuckerberg’s quote in context (from Andy’s lnk):

“People signed up for Facebook thinking that it was a way to just stay in touch with their friends. And now some of them feel that there’s some snooping going on,” Stahl says. ‘Is there any concern you’re turning Facebook into something much more commercial?’

‘I actually think that this makes it less commercial. I mean, what would you rather see? A banner ad from Bloomingdale’s or that one of your friends bought a scarf?’ Zuckerberg asks.”

If you had put that quote in context, we’d understand why he said what he said. Instead, you took the shady pseudo-journalistic route to sensationalize stories.

Lame.

@Pete #78

To put a new spin on an old phrase -

You can’t trust anyone under Forty…

You have to give him credit for creating a company who now has over 60 million users. Who knows what it’s really worth and who knows how long it will last, but at this point the kid is smart in how he created and marketed facebook. Is he smart enough to make it last? Who knows. Some people are smart at the start but get too arrogant too fast. He might be getting too arrogant to fast, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to somebody.

What I do find funny are people who make excuses for him that he’s only a 24 year old kid. Yet half the same people condemn 20 something year old sports stars and actors/muscians all the time. I guess one 24 year old isn’t the same as another 24 year old. If his excuse is that he’s only 24, then the same standard should be held for other 24 year olds that people condmen when they lose a game or come out with a bad album or movie or come off as ‘fake’ in some interview. You can’t condemn others at the same age for saying something stupid or not saying anything and then say “Oh he’s only 24″ when it comes to MZ.

@88 - Jason

Clearly you have never had venture investors invest in your company or have dealt with a board of directors. I guarantee FB’s VC’s would love to have an Eric Schmidt-type running FB and they’re probably already looking. No CEO, not even MZ, can “do what ever he wants” for very long. The measuring stick is results, results equal revenue and results are all that counts. Beacon certainly didn’t perform and FB may have 60MM users but I don’t see them being converted to revenue.

He didn’t seem arrogant at all to me. He seemed awkward and maybe didn’t know the best way to respond to things, but not arrogant. I am fairly impressed by how NOT arrogant he was for a 23-year-old. I’m 24 and even though I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing, I’m still full of myself.

And about the google question - that was not a question. She said it like she was expressing it as her opinion and Mark was respecting her opinion and wanted to hear what she had to say about it. She didn’t really specify her question at ALL. He was just like, “What? What are you asking me? Sorry I was thinking about some code there for a minute. Eh?”

sometimes youth and folly can’t replace age old wisdom. At least he’s getting there with 3 billion bucks under his belt. I only have 3 laptops to rely on my blogging empire.