The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook
Yesterday morning I woke up early. Was sitting in the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. trying to check email when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Mark Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Facebook, which now has 68 million active users (people who’ve signed on in the past 30 days).
He invited me to a breakfast with Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf. We walked together to the breakfast, which was interesting because of Musharraf’s comments, where he defended his administration. After the breakfast Mark and I spent a bunch of time together, where he gave me permission to quote him.
Aside: I owe this interview to Lance Knobel, who writes the Davos Newbies blog (he used to work for the World Economic Forum and knows the Davos event inside and out). I met with him before coming to Davos and he told me to wake up early every morning and go to as many breakfasts as I could get to. If you ever get a chance to come to Davos you should look up Lance. Another great thing I’ve done is hanging out with Mike Arrington in the YouTube booth (Google graciously let me blog in their booth, which is where I’m writing to you now. Arrington has a post up about what has been happening here in the YouTube booth the past few days. A shout out too to the Forbes blogging crew who has been doing an awesome job from the same area. Here’s a video I filmed in the booth explaining how I got to Davos — while filming the video Bono, Tony Blair, and the Japanese Prime Minister walked past).
Anyway, back to Zuckerberg.
It will forever be one of the highlights of my life just walking alone through the streets of Davos with him.
I asked him why he doesn’t like going on video and seems to have difficulty dealing with the press and bloggers. He said he was shy. Asked me not to video him “I freeze up,” he told me. He did promise to meet more with bloggers and to give me a video interview when he’s back home.
It was an amazing admission.
But it was far from the only thing I learned about Mark. Over the three hours he demonstrated to me just how smart he was (Linden Labs founder, Phillip Rosedale, joined us at one point and they instantly broke into a discussion that switched back and forth between a pretty technical discussion of architectures and things they’ve both learned by scaling up businesses to millions of users. Zuckerberg said that Facebook makes a lot of use of memcache to get better performance and that they’ve built a lot of custom code for MySQL, which they’ve donated back to the community) and why he’s seen as one of the most interesting business leaders of our time. Talked with me about how his management team works, how he’s working to keep a unique culture, and gave me lots of details about what is coming this year in Facebook.
I also got a chance to watch him as he dealt with world leaders at a Newsweek lunch and came away impressed with his social graces. I wish I had his poise and skills and I’m almost twice his age.
One of the things that I hope to get him to tell me on camera is his descriptions of the people who work for him — it was a side of him that I haven’t yet seen displayed outwardly. It’s clear he has deep respect for the people who work with him. If there was a part of him that inspired me, that was it. Leaders usually are pretty good about sharing their strategy, but it’s a rare corporate leader who tells me interesting stories about his employees and the work that they do and work to share credit with other people.
Some things he shared with me about Facebook?
1. They are within weeks of shipping translated versions of Facebook. He wondered just how much faster Facebook would have grown if they had had translated versions sooner. He told me that they had traded off working on that to work instead on keeping up with the huge growth they had seen. He believes that much of Facebook’s growth this year will come from non-English-speaking regions.
2. They are working on a major overhaul of the application platform. Both to make apps less spammy and also to deliver much more functionality so more apps move beyond the viral, but pretty low feature, styles of apps.
3. They are still thinking about data portability and just how that will work to both protect users as well as to encourage new kinds of applications to be built. He explained to me that the kind of script that I was running is often used by spammers to send tons of messages to users and that’s something they are really working to protect their users against. On the other hand, he understood the kinds of apps that I wanted to have as a user. When Rosedale was sitting with us, I pointed out that I’d love to see when Facebook users are active on Second Life. That would require opening up the social graph to new kinds of data sharing that Facebook isn’t yet allowing. But he didn’t yet have answers as to just what Facebook will allow in the future.
4. I told him that Facebook’s messaging capabilities was both cool but also very limiting. Cool because, unlike my email, there isn’t spam. Limiting because I can’t join more people into a conversation thread after it starts. He told me that Facebook will see major changes in its architecture that would allow outside developers to build new capabilities in major parts of its service, which will help Facebook to see the features that I want to have. This is a sizeable shift in strategy for Facebook and one that is a great message for outside developers to see. One of the fears I hear is that developers are worried that Facebook will steal/copy their work and build popular apps or features itself. Zuckerberg told me that overtime it’ll be clear that the reverse will prove to be true.
5. He talked to me about his love of Scrabulous and was hopeful that a good resolution will come. Hasbro has been threatening the two developers of Scrabulous. I told Zuckerberg that it was clear that Hasbro had a case that its intellectual property was being infringed on (Scrabulous is an online version of Hasbro’s Scrabble, which pretty clearly infringes on copyrights and trademarks of Hasbro’s). Zuckerberg agreed that that was the case, but told me that Hasbro does see the value in getting a new online community built on its behalf. He thinks there may be an acquisition or other good outcome to the dispute.
6. I wondered if we’d see the ability to share photos and videos with the public internet. He said that they were working on better granularity on Facebook’s privacy features, which would allow such things, but that it’s tough to take some things into public light because Facebook’s features rely so much on tagging and other content from its members, some of whom might not want those details shared publicly. He expects Facebook to move cautiously in those areas.
7. Facebook has a limitation on the number of friends a person can have, which is 4,999 friends. He says that was due to scaling/technical issues and they are working on getting rid of that limitation. Partly to make it possible to have celebrities on Facebook but also to make it possible to have more grouping kinds of features. He told me many members were getting thousands of friends and that those users are also asking for many more features to put their friends into different groups. He expects to see improvements in that area this year.
8. He admitted to me that he had made mistakes in how they implemented Beacon and explained it. Watch for him to come back with a new Beacon and a much better explanation.
9. He admitted to me that he had made mistakes in how he communicates with the Facebook community. I asked him why he only blogs when the community has a negative reaction to something that Facebook does. he says that’s a mistake and that he’ll work on being more transparent and open with his communications. He also will encourage his team to work closer with bloggers, journalists, and members of the Facebook community to build better relationships so that problems can be discussed more openly. I urged him to change how Facebook deletes accounts from people who break the rules and to put in place more process for people to appeal deletion decisions.
One last thing. This post sounds fawning, I know. But Zuckerberg demonstrated to me that he is, indeed, the real deal and that the hype he’s gotten over the past year has largely been deserved. He definitely won me over.
Imagine what’ll he get done when he gets over his shyness.
Powered By 
January 26th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Zuckerberg AND Musharraf? Wow.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Wills: the entire week has been Wow for me.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:01 am
“one of the highlights of my life” - puh-leeeeeese
Pass the bucket. I’ve seen nothing from Facebook in the last six months to make me think they’ve got special leadership.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Woah, president Musharraf? That’s almost incomprensible, must have been a wonderful thing not many people will get the chance to speak with a man so influential on the world stage right now.
-
Definitely one to tell the grandkids about
January 26th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Bruce: really? They have a system that 68 million people use. I know intimately the mistakes that Facebook is making, but they still have built something of pretty sizeable value and anyone who says that doesn’t take leadership simply doesn’t have much credibility.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:21 am
[...] Robert Scoble hat in Davos mit Facebook-CEO Mark Zuckerberg über Gott Facebook und die Welt gesprochen. Das Wichtigste: [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 5:33 am
I have great respect for Zukerberg and I think he may be our next great (really if he’s not already) innovator. There can be no doubt that the internet is THE medium of the present and the future. I think Zukerberg will pioneer it as it reaches it’s masses and more of a user-functionality community accomplishing both complex and simple tasks.
Nice read Scoble.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:41 am
I must say written posts, like this, are SO much better than the video kind - I really do hate having to plough through videos to get a bit of content.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Geoff: I understand, but while at Davos I was not going to spend time away from the floor to blog. Video is the only way to get on the spot. And, believe me, if I had the whole three hours videoed every minute of it was interesting.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Videos are fantastic because it lets you see and hear the people but there is nothing like the written word. People fade away but words get stronger by the day. You bring the best of Davos to us. Fantastic post and looking forward to the video. I love the N95 videos. Keep warm and keep working!
January 26th, 2008 at 6:05 am
One of the highlights of my life was being asked the question “Who are you? And what do you do?” with the trademark chuckle. Glad it has gone global. Keep chuckling; keep vesting!
January 26th, 2008 at 6:31 am
I’ve been waiting for this post since I’ve heard of Facebook and Robert Scoble. When you interviewed Zuckerberg’s sister, it came close to satisfying my curiosity, but this is it - this close-up description of probably the most up-and-rising man in business today is what I was waiting for. Good work, and this alone justifies you going to Davos. :-)
January 26th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I guess it’s unlikely that your FB profile will get suspended again in the future! Thanks for the insightful, “backstage access” post.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:05 am
This is a really interesting article. Zuckerberg has always been very shy to me in videos, and it always stood out like a sore thumb. The kid has a lot of talent and has a pretty powerful mind. Im sure will succeed. These types of stories always interest me. People always want to know more about someones personal life. Mark is slowly turning into a celebrity himself.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:12 am
What was it, Mr S… about 1 a.m. on the London streets that Dave Sifry said it would be awesome at Davos? To just work the program like crazy and accept the lead of some certain others? I’d carry your battery packs any day :)
BTW, did Howard Stringer dodge your battery question or what!? C’mon!
January 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Wow. Great to see Zuckerberg being so transparent with you. Lots of good scoops about FB here!
January 26th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Great interview. One of the things you alluded to was his unique management style and how facebook is organized internally. Could you write a little more about that?
January 26th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Nah - doesn’t sound fawning - more respectful of a person Scoble got to know a bit better. Nothing wrong with that.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Hey Robert. Another great post. Thanks for sharing that! Sounds like you’ve been having a very good time at Davos.
It seems like your posts get better and better over the last weeks. You’ve been posting some really great stuff recently.
And I agree with Dennis Howlett!
Cheers,
Thomas
January 26th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I can haz cheezburger with mark and robert?
January 26th, 2008 at 8:33 am
great stuff Robert… really felt like I was walking along together with you & mark :)
I’ve had that informal kind of chat once before with him, and I agree he’s a pretty amazing if a bit shy individual. glad to hear he plans to do more communication & blogging in he future too.
have fun in Davos & hope you can join us to speak @Graphing Social Patterns conf in San Diego March 3-4! should be a Facebook / Google / MySpace social networking platform geekfest :)
- dave mc
January 26th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Great scobleizer!
January 26th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Jeez Robert, you can’t read people very well if you couldn’t tell Mark was shy. It’s so obvious any time you see him. I would advise you to spend a little more time with women; they might teach you a thing or two.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:55 am
You must have had so much of a great time! Woo hoo! Great article too.
Congrats!
January 26th, 2008 at 9:19 am
The funny part is that you didn’t discuss your “wrongful” termination, nor the other issues your readers discussed, like the inability to get reinstated, nor the inability to commit “facebook suicide” and remove your content when you wish.
That is why your article seems fawning and shallow to me. You had real issues two weeks ago and instead talked only about other issues.
Maybe I missed something.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] case you don’t subscribe to Scoble’s blog, here is an interesting interview he conducted with a strangely shy Mark Zuckerberg: Yesterday morning I woke up early. Was sitting in the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. trying to check email [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am
@Don (#21) You should re-read his point #3. He addressed the “incident” there.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Mike: exactly. We did talk about those issues. But there’s some stuff I’m saving for a video interview.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Jake: I’d rather get a video tour of Facebook and get that stuff down in the team’s own words.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am
[...] By admin | January 27, 2008 Wow, I never knew bloggers were even in Davos ? They are having the World Economic Forum over there now and Robert Scoble aka Super ex blogger for Microsoft was fiddling around the video and even had breakfast with the shy Mark Zuckerberg. He even blogged at the Google booth ? Gee, this guys are so lucky! Read about his day here [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Davos , wow. I wish I was playing snow there but I am stuck in sunny Kuala Lumpur. Great post dude.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am
It will forever be one of the highlights of my life just reading this blog post about Robert walking alone through the streets of Davos with Mark.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:47 am
[...] The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressYou must log in to post a comment. [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 10:48 am
A 24 year old geek was awake and going to breakfast at 7am… or had he not slept yet? :)
And that’s my biggest concern with Facebook, not privacy, but how they handle _alleged_ TOS violations. I wouldn’t mind my data be “trapped” there so much if I felt like they were reasonable guys about banning accounts, but unfortunately I think they disrespect people by sending no warnings and only sending “This decision is final” - you’re banned, messages.
Interesting interview.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Tollie: he was awake. The fact that +I+ was awake is incredible, too.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:54 am
[...] Mark Zuckerberg and Robert Scoble ARE meant for each other! [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Tech Bloggers @ Davos: Veni, Vidi, Blogi!
Mike Robert, blogging in Davos Originally uploaded by michaelarrington Mike Arrington Robert Scoble conquer Davos, news @ 11. great stuff from Michael Robert at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland ( i’m soooo jealous):* Scoble on Zuck Faceb…
January 26th, 2008 at 11:33 am
[...] de la Silicon Valley, mondialement célèbre sur la toile des geeks, vient de raconter, dans un post absolument surprenant car proprement dithyrambique, sa rencontre avec Mark Zuckerberg, le CEO de [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 11:39 am
definition of friends: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&hs=ytp&q=define%3Afriend&btnG=Search
January 26th, 2008 at 11:58 am
If Zuckerberg tapped my shoulders when I was busy checking mail, I would give him a tight slap
January 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] Robert Scoble conversation with FacebookZuckerberg at davos jan 26 08 my comment on scobleizer [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
interesting piece - would have loved to get more on Musharraf’s comments and if maybe zuckerberg and musharraf realized they both had maybe more in common then we can imagine - musharraf, a give me a break, totalitarian leader (president?) of pakistan and zuckerberg un-elected leader of facebook nation of 68 million people - as an independent doc filmmaker i would have liked to hear more non-tech stuff on how zuckerberg sees himself, how he saw facebook then and now and in the future - and what he sees facebook’s potential as leading a social movement, social sculpture in the social/conversation revolution we find ourselves in - how his life and image of himself has changed, what his passions are - how he spends his days, how much he sleeps, etc - food for thought, what will people of the future say about us today? and how will the social media conversation change the future - geo geller
January 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Robert Scoble gives Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) a big sloppy blowjob
This story has been submitted to Stirrdup. Your support can help it become hot.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
hmmmm let’s see…. You have breakfast with the president of Pakistan but instead choose to write a fawning recap of a conversation with a guy on whom you have a man-crush. And you pepper him with softball questions the type of which Larry King would be envious. Good Job! Of course it would have been an international embarrasment if you interviewed Musharraf and started out with “Who are you and what do you do?”
January 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[...] building at FB, I’m pretty confident that good things are yet to come. clipped from scobleizer.comYesterday morning I woke up early. Was sitting in the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. trying to check email [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hi Robert,
Thanks for sharing with us your conversation with Mark and shed light on what FB’s CEO is thinking of.
I watched him on 60 Minutes recently and I really wasn’t very impressed with him, but I guess the shyness now explains it.
Now I’ll look at him in a different light and cut some slack due to the shyness. Thanks again for sharing!
BTW, major Scrabulous fan! I recently wrote in my own blog about the Hasbro lawsuit too. If anyone from Hasbro is reading, FWIW, we actually got a REAL Scrabble game this last Christmas from a friend who we play Scrabulouse with all the time. I bet Hasbro saw a increase in their board games sales since the popular Scrabulous on FB.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
what? are you talking about the guy who said he would never hire anybody who is older than 24, and who lied to everybody about beacon? they guy who did not even have the decency to apologize for their disrespect of their users privacy? i truly think you are a very smart man and i have learned a lot by listening to you, but in this case i don’t understand you at all…
January 26th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
You’re right, the post is fawning. And it doesn’t address the fundamental problems with the way facebook operates, such as the inability to delete one’s account. Nothing you said points to anything that would have won me over.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[...] Mr. Scoble has a great post about his meeting with FaceBook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and in his conversations with Mr Zuckerberg he finds out a bit of who Mark really is. Good read [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Robert this post offered realy great insights about a key figure in the big game. Very glad to see you covering Davos for those of us who … won’t get invited anytime soon!
January 26th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Robert, it’s a nice post! But I was looking for some new information. We have read most of this info all over in blogosphere before. I was hoping to learn more of a “personal” Mark Zuckerberg.
I would actually want to know - how many hrs a day he works? How much time he spends on Business Operations Vs Technical Development Vs Family & Friends? What kinds of books he reads? How does he learn his business strategies and tactics? How does he take decisions? How does he inspire his team? How does he spend his weekend - on Facebook stuff only or on personal stuff? Etc.
These are the questions which are never answered by blogospehre about the leaders. The company details are all out there.
It would be great if you could mention some inputs on Mark’s personality as a leader if you learned about it in your interview with him.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
this is a FB PR coup and validates Arrington’s theory that Scoble has sold out. After Beacon, 60 minutes and a host of other PR blunders, what better way to get back into the tech community’s good graces than to co-opt the one blogger that has been most critical of zuckerberg and FB? It seems like brandee barker did a god job of prepping him for this puff piece…every time he was asked a question, he responds with the answer he should povide. not once did he respond with ‘was that a question?’ i guess you’d have to expect these sellout tactics from scoble now that he has ben elevated to a new level through davos and fast company. smacks of sell out to me, though.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
If FB continues its run, Zuckerberg will quickly mature in his dealings with press, shyness, etc. Gates and Jobs, for example, were still obscure figures in their early-mid 20’s. Anyone who knew Gates or some him in those days would say that Zuckerberg is no less awkward. It’s amazing what some years (and lots of media/speaking training) did for Gates, Jobs et al. He just needs to be self-critical enough to recognize his weaknesses as they are easily remedied.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] Scobleizer - The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook http://scobleizer.com/2008/01/26/the-shy-mark-zuckerberg-founder-of-facebook/ [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
[...] the nerdly details of SPARQL and FOAF/RDF etc for another post. Instead here’s a pointer to a Scoble article on Mr Facebook, where they’re grappling with similar issues but from a massive aggregation rather than [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Interesting post. Though how you call this a “highlight of your life”….makes me wonder if you really mean that?
January 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Hey Robert,
Would be very interested in hearing what you talked about during breakfast with Pervez.
Cheers,
Conrad
January 26th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Robert: Sometimes when you come out as lodmouthed as a taxi dispatcher as Las Vegas Airport I wonder why I keep browsing your blog. Now I know, again. Never mind that Zuckerberg made some extraordinarily good business decisions as well as some that were heavily criticized — he is just an introvert kid who thinks a lot about social tools, and happens to bring interesting people to sit at the feet of other interesting people. This is an exquisite prose poem, really.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
[...] saw this on Robert Scoble’s blog about his talk with the founder of popular social networking site Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, in [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I have noticed a different attitude in facebook in the last month… we all warned them that something better was coming. Zuckerturd has been humbled. The sad thing is I was his zealous biggest fan… funny to see the tyrants of the near past become the next generation of philantrophy. …as for the rest of us… watch out Scoble your ankles are next. del.icio.us!
January 26th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
It should work for watchers to do live video tagging (or almost live) through qik. Ideally the tags would have links to times on the video to allow non-contemporaneous viewers to find what they want to find.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] is a rather remarkable post in Robert Scoble’s blog about some time he spent with Facebook founder and CEO Mark [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I went back and re-read #3. With all due respect, that IS talking about the activity that got you the boot. It IS NOT discussing the unilateral approach taken to terminations that we were talking about, NOR the inability to delete a username and the content that went with it.
You had a chance to talk about how they treat people — to me that is the issue. Maybe you did and you are saving it …
I’m not saying what they plan to roll out is insignificant, but how they treat people is important too.
If you didn’t happen to be a a-lister or whatever you are I suspect you would still be face(book)less. They didn’t even bother to respond to little old me when I wrote to them.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hmmmmm…Great Job. Get invited to sit with the President of Pakistan at breakfast, yet you classify a stroll with a person on whom you have a major man-crush at which you fire softball questions that Larry King would be jealous of, t as forever being one of the highlights of your life. Hmmmm… President of Pakistan…or Mark Zuckerburg…someone very few have heard of (even though he may have 68MM people “signed up” for his service. Heck, a lot of porn sites have that many users, so I’m not sure your point). Great perspective there, Scoble! But, I guess we should be thankful we avoided national embarrassment by you starting an interview with President Musharraf with: “Who are you and what do you do?”
January 26th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
[...] also: Robert Scoble’s interview with Facebook co-founder Mark [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Scoble - I think one can see that he is the real deal but I also think that at 23 he is getting a lot of sound input from very sophisticated VCs and business leaders. He reminds me of Bill Gates when he was young but with more customer facing capabilities.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I promise this, I promise that, maybe, saying whatever you want to hear. Sitting down to chat, is all it takes to “win you over”? It all comes down to just a buncha blog crybabies wanting to be fed eternal ego-worms, ‘loookie at me’s’.
And if he’s THAT shy, maybe CEO is not the right title for him, proven obvious already, but geeks wax on.
Tuck your ego, inside your shirt, playing video-greet-the-celebrities, ain’t gonna save the world. Davos is less about ‘economics’, and more about NGOs wanting handouts to solve “problems”. Cue up some celebrity bloggers covering other “celebrities”, and instant fluff press.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
[...] zum thema: jedenfalls bloggte scoble über sein dreistündiges meeting mit mark “facebook” zuckerberg (inkl. gemeinsamen frühstücks mit pakistans präsident pervez musharraf) und [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] ran into Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, in Davos and seemed to hit it off quite well. He has blogged his experience, stating that he and Zucky are now this “” close or maybe I’m [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Would have been really great to know how he thought FB apps was going; if he felt he’d achieved what he set out to since the launch last year?
Also would have been good to know what he thought of International delete your MySpace account day - Wednesday, January 30th 2008.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Dear Robert,
Will poor plebs like me always just be looking at the un-reachable, looking-in, never a chance to go to a place like davos?
Is Davos a platinum version of sundance!, a very rich mans party?
As for Facebook, I think a lot of people are getting ahead of themselves, we’ve already seen one version of history with myspace and ebay -the network-effect eventually stalls, the media keep going on about facebook because its occupied by the media-demographic, but ultimately there are so many competitors out there that are learning from all the mess-ups, and social networks often based on real local-networks could end up being a market of many fractures.
If they join data-portability and have an open infrastructure for things such as widgets, as with bebo, then what unique properties can it offer -the winner in all of this may well be Ning-like aggregators/commoditisers.
The worst aspect of all modern social networks though, won’t stop being the fact they are re-creators of the old closed bulletin-board systems of delphi, cix and aol.com -how is there any difference except maybe better granular relational intelligence, but it was aol that had buddy-lists and chat, remember the old cross-roads/battles of aol and ms changing over onto the wide open internet?
Thanks for the posts and vicarious excitement, but it does become weary to those who can only ever dream.
Yours kindly,
Shakir Razak
January 26th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[...] and Musharraf? 27Jan08 I have this feeling that Davos is like Vegas. And now Scoble posts a story about a conversation he has walking to a breakfast with Zuckerberg, both heading to meet [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
[...] uns Scoble in seinem Blogpost. Im weiteren Verlauf des Gesprächs, unterhielten sich die beiden über Web-Technologie [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
This raises Zuckerberg in my mind a little, though I’d still like to see him in person or at least on video because I’ve always had a negative idea of him as a person…sort of like the little kid who got lucky or whatever.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
[...] Robert Scoble got some quality time with Mark Zuckerberg. I hope he convinced him to build in “Opt-in” into relationships which will give users control over who can export their data. That’s that’s granularity we need. [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 2:31 am
[...] Scoble meets Zuckerberg: [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 2:47 am
[...] könnte mein Blogeintrag lauten, ich würde zum Interview von Robert Scoble mit Mark Zuckerberg linken, dann etwas über das Wachstumspotential schreiben, Folgen für studiVZ etc. So könnte das [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Thoughts On “What If The Internet Went Down”
What happened this week: NetworkWorld asks What if the Internet went down…and didn’t come back up? (seen through Techdirt) and Robert Scoble spends some day with Web 2.0 celebs.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:40 am
[...] Scoble’s recent post about Facebook’s Zuckerberg. The Zuck says a lot of his problem with PR is because he is extremely shy. Yet Scoble felt the [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Not fawning at all, good to hear of your open, honest interaction with Mark Zuckerberg AND the invite to breakfast with Pakistan’s PM Musharraf. I’m with Geoff, no. 8, above, prefer to cut to the chase and not view countless videos. But with video and World Economic Forum’s initiative this year to “open up the dialogue” with all of the weblinks, people like Shakir, no. 46, do have additional insight into what was once an even more elite “happening.”
There was a time when the World Economic Forum was a closed society, with participants quietly asked to keep the general tenor “off the record.” All that has changed. Hope that the participants’ and attendees’ words, including yours and mine, lead to action and “making the world a better place.” Really.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
[...] לעשות Robert Scoble שסיפק בפעם הראשונה ראיון מקיף ומעניין עם מרק צוקרברג, מייסד Facebook, הוא נפגש עם שועי עולם (ראשי [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 11:48 am
[...] Journalists, and their Subjects Robert Scoble has posted an interesting summary of a casual interview he had with Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, while at the World Economic Forum in Davos, [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
[...] great to see Mark Zuckerberg getting cozy with Robert Scoble - acting all human and such, but that doesn’t mean that their latest move - in offering up [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
come on, this is a blatant schmooze job, from someone who clearly needs Zuckerburg’s friendship at some level going forward.
What a puff piece. Tryiong to regain favor from the king’s court?
Most of this stuff is geared towards people vested in FB and not a real newsworthy article IMO.
I think of FB as a Fad with some worthwhile value, but most yet to be realized, and as it is becoming clear that value needs to be realized, the hot seat for Mark is just getting warm.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Robert…excellent and insightful post. now that you work for ‘the man,’ i hope your blog doesnt lose any of the personal insights you honestly convey.
As for ‘the kid,’ he is really something. Paper billionaire yet lives/dresses like a poor college student. Hopefully this post will elminate perceptions of him as arrogant. his onstage/public persona is simply overcompensating for his insecurity and shyness in the front of strangers.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
[...] great to see Mark Zuckerberg getting cozy with Robert Scoble - acting all human and such, but that doesn’t mean that their latest move - in offering up client [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Fascinating insights into Zuckerberg’s personality. Thanks for blogging this.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Robert - really enjoying this behind the scenes series. thanks!
January 27th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Robert and Geoff - Look we are in an era where information counts more than format, so I’d make the following points
1) This post is wonderful, agreed Geoff, but it is through Robert’s filter. Nonetheless, it is worth its weight in gold to read about Robert’s experiences
2) While I know Robert is about video, the conversation with you and Zuckerberg is primarily about the information and to hear it from Zuckerberg. The setting, while I’m sure would add to the story, it is still secondary. Therefore, my point is this, if Zuckerberg is uncomfortable with Zuckerberg just mic him and get the pure comment in audio, the interaction between the two of you is classic, brilliant radio (net radio too, audio podcast,it just sounds better to say radio), not video.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Someone up thread commented that videos let you “see and hear” — if you can hear. The spread of video is a big blow to accessibility, unless people start regularly captioning their videos. Right now, they don’t. Transcripts would be helpful, but a quick bulleted list like this is infinitely more accessible to the large community of Deaf (including the hard of hearing) that are wired and networking over the Internet.
Thanks for for the write up on this.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
[...] the blogosphere Friday that I think is going to turn out to be much bigger than anyone realizes. Facebook apps that can run outside of Facebook? I love [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
It’s good to hear Zuckerberg opening up. Though I still think Facebook is just getting too cluttered. The more members it has, the worse it gets…
January 27th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
U are so lucky to take breakfast with Pervez Musharraf. I really enjoyed this article.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:07 am
[...] Robert Scoble: Zuckerberg is shy [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Sorry not buying it. The reason he is shy is that he stole the idea from someone else and that as soon as the VC’s came calling and real business and tech people got involved he was just stuck up there as a figurehead.
If I hear again about how visonary he is and how he is going to be the next Jobs I am going to puke.
Facebook is evolving into an insidous and invasive platform that is real story.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Thanks, that’s a helpful and informative interview, Robert.
Obviously I’ve never met Zuckerberg, but in my experience, people who are shy are often the opposite of what you think, meek and retiring. In fact, they are very controlling and imperious, and they get their way by their passive/aggressive shyness. So Zuckerberg got his way here, and didn’t submit to a normal video interview that anybody else in the industry would have done.
A particularly annoying thing about the FB applications is that many of them force you to uncheck all your friends to avoid having them spammed by the application — instead of opting in your friends. Some of them won’t even activate unless all friends are checked off and spammed. And that’s why I’ve stopped using them, it’s no fun sitting there unchecking hundreds of people. They need to stop that.
As you may know, Second Life isn’t scaling any millions, It has 60,000 concurrent and about 1.3 million in last 60 days.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:51 am
What If….
Just what if, Mr. Zuckerberg really did get employed to write code and ran away with the idea, what if……..
I know that might make be be quiet :p <br
What if…..?
Another thing, after watching the last bit of coverage from CNN, a bit of uncomfortable non-pc-ness:
How Black or dark-skinned, or Muslims, Africans and South Americans Were there?
Maybe Davos/WEF is just a real-world version of the insular naval-gazing Blogosphere?
Kind regards,
Shakir Razak
January 28th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I hope that the scrabulous situation is resolved one way or another soon, it’s been interesting to watch that develop.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Mark is typical of young execs. He hasn’t had the facetime with industry luminaries, public speaking, and, let’s face it, the raw experience. Stuff like Davos helps tremendously.
I think that Facebook is not the last we will see of Mark. Guys like him, whether you like them or not, are always looking for new ways to do things.
Some guys just never really get confortable with cameras and the limelight. Plenty of good people out there like this. I actually have alot of respect for the ones that lay low and just concentrate.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Robert — great post. BTW Regarding #4 [messaging] — another thing that sucks now is that when you are in a “thread” [of people], you can’t get yourself out of the thread. You can delete the thread, but if someone replies to it, you still get that. Pretty aggravating when you just don’t want to be in a thread any longer.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:19 am
[...] of response when problems happened, something which has severely impacted Facebook. The answer was quite unexpected. I asked him why he doesn’t like going on video and seems to have difficulty dealing with the [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 8:25 am
@94…
Haven’t you seen the photos… lots of Israelis, Arabs (even a queen), etc. there at Davos.
Let’s not play the race card, dude…
The Internet is open to all. So is the ability to launch new ideas. Look at India, Korea, Brazil. All of these places have luanched great stuff. The beauty of the Internet is that it is race independent. Anyone with a high-speed connection and a good idea can help change things for the better.
I personally met some guys in South America who are doing some great things for the people there. Getting this young generation online and educated.
Just because people of color are not the highlight of the show doesn’t mean they are not involved in meaningful, key ways. If an Arab queen is not enough of a person of color, let alone being a woman, then you have issues. She’s smart, beautiful, and cares about the direction of her country and people.
Let’s not play the race card… it only serves to make matters worse.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:44 am
[...] http://scobleizer.com/2008/01/26/the-shy-mark-zuckerberg-founder-of-facebook [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I like to learn more about how Face book got popular
January 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Far from fawning Robert, great post. Thanks for all the information, sounds like you had a great experience too. If we can trust anyone to give an honest opinion on FB right now that would be you. Pleased to hear most of what they have planned. Hey, we’ve all got failings…
January 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Thanks Robert, great post. I’m sure the fact that you seem to be a nice guy and the real deal yourself helped make Mark feel comfortable in talking to you.
@94 - What if you tried contributing something positive? Maybe it would come back around to you.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
[...] Robert Scoble, who’s currently attending the Davos conference, had the chance to connect with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO. Among the things Zuckerberg shared: [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
@97,
It rarely hurts to ask questions, and pedents have a thing for looking beyond the superficial :p
I did start googling, but then realised that if you want to know more about the world, you will. I was talking about the WEF, not the internet.
Kind regards,
Shakir Razak
January 29th, 2008 at 1:19 am
[...] Okumak isteyen varsa link burada. [...]
January 29th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Great Post. What do you think about this article in the Guardian about facebook and the people behind?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
January 29th, 2008 at 3:20 am
[...] a recent Scoble interview with Mark Zuckerberg he expressed the desire to encourage new applications which are less useless (my words not his!) [...]
January 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@Meeting Musharraf:
wow, kool, its like meeting Hitler in person! :-)
January 30th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Insane. You must have felt a bit of a chill running through your spine seeing and meeting so many of the biggest icons in todays society. I’m glad to see Z admit his mistakes. Trust me. No one gets it right first time. He must remain in charge for as long as it takes. Excellent Post!
January 30th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
[...] Also found this on Delicious yesterday - The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Faceboo [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Point 9 is particularly great Robert. We know that you’ve mentioned issues surrounding their treatment of disabled accounts to the man on top and I hope to see them do something. As is, I have a Better Business Bureau complaint against them regarding my issue which was an irreversible disabling without warning for unclear reason. They already missed their first deadline in responding to the complaint. They have about three hours left before missing their next deadline in addressing the complaint. I hope to see something positive from it. My friends are special to me and Facebook dramatically mistreats them in how they disable accounts. As is, I now intentionally violate their Terms of Use in order to have an account. That simply isn’t right. They shouldn’t be forcing people into violating their Terms of Use by being overzealous in their enforcement of it. That just makes their problem bigger.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:04 pm
[...] The point here is that it’s good to be #1. MySpace has more than 110m monthly active users (Social Network Stats:Facebook, MySpace, Reunion), while facebook has 68m monthly active users (The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook). [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] his position as CEO of the company. So far he has been a shy individual who has successfully won over Robert Scoble. Robert Scoble hasn’t exactly been know for keeping the beat of the market [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 4:54 am
[...] his position as CEO of the company. So far he has been a shy individual who has successfully won over Robert Scoble. Robert Scoble hasn’t exactly been know for keeping the beat of the market [...]
February 4th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I read this post with some enthusiasm only to be disappointed (but unsurprised) by the continued emphasis on the needs of developers (versus users). That’s very nice that Zuck is so adorable - I only wish he could translate that affability into better treatment of his “community” …
February 5th, 2008 at 2:28 am
[...] The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger Subscribe to site [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[...] social graph to another service. In a later post on his site, an interesting point is made during an interview with Mark Zuckerberg: They are still thinking about data portability and just how that will work to [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
[...] Scoble “interview” with Mark Zuckerberg at Davos (tags: scobleizer davos scoble interview zuckerberg Facebook social internet) [...]
February 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
[...] that facebook is working hard to put the wrong bits of toothpaste back in the tube, and will be doing a lot to no doubt be twice as big in 2008. And if the alpha geeks are turning away from facebook, maybe [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[...] clipped from scobleizer.com [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
[...] clipped from scobleizer.com [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
[...] clipped from scobleizer.com [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 4:10 am
[...] Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is shy [...]
April 24th, 2008 at 7:43 am
[...] The shy Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook: “breakfast” [...]