Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, in a tie? Oh my.
If you know Mark you know he’s a pretty casual dresser. Usually seen in T-shirt, jeans, and sandals.
But not here at the World Economic Forum where we walked around downtown Davos last night for a while before heading into the Time Magazine’s reception. Last year we did a similar walk where I got to know him better.
This year people at the party noted his tie and he explained that he was wearing it to denote that this was Facebook’s “intense” year.
Last year when we walked around Davos they had about 50 million users. Today? More than 150 million with about 450,000 new users joining every day.
This is Facebook’s make or break year. It is the year that will set them up to be one of Silicon Valley’s most respected brands along with HP, Intel, Google or, well, it could be the year that the wheels come off of the train and everything goes wrong.
The tie is his way of telling his team and the world that this is Facebook’s most intense year.
We talked about a few other things too, here’s a selection.
**I gave him heck for kicking off people from Facebook who didn’t deserve the “death penalty,” as I put it. He said that they are always looking at how to protect its system from spammers and bad actors. “We’d rather put up with a few false positives,” he told me. He did like my idea of a less punitive “jail” for first-time offenders, though, so that the team can turn off certain features instead of just killing the account altogether. He also said that his system looks for “outlying” behavior. He said if you behave like an average user you should never trigger the algorithms that will get you kicked off. Of course, that irks me a bit because my usage of social media sites is totally outlier behavior. But, I can see his point. One thing that’s nice about Facebook is that I see very little spam or other nasty behavior.
**Facebook is, he told me, studying “sentiment” behavior. It hasn’t yet used that research in its public service yet, but is looking to figure out if people are having a good day or bad day. He said that already his teams are able to sense when nasty news, like stock prices are headed down, is underway. He also told me that the sentiment engine notices a lot of “going out” kinds of messages on Friday afternoon and then notices a lot of “hungover” messages on Saturday morning. He’s not sure where that research will lead. We talked about how sentiment analysis might lead to a new kind of news display in Facebook. Knowing whether a story is positive or negative would let Facebook pick a good selection of both kinds of news, or maybe even let you choose whether you want to see only “happy” news.
**At the Time Magazine party tons of people came up to him to tell him their Facebook stories. He deals with them graciously and talks to them about features in Facebook they might try. He noted with one such fan that lots of people haven’t played with the privacy settings, which give you control over who can see your photos, for instance. I think that’s really why Facebook is so popular. I know my wife really loves Facebook but hasn’t taken to Twitter or friendfeed. I sense that her ability to control which friends see her stuff is one reason why she’s so enthusiastic about Facebook. The second in command at Time, Michael Elliot said he would be so cool with his kids if they new he was hanging out with Zuckerberg.
**He asked me what I was most excited about. We talked about friendfeed. It’s clear to me that he’s watching friendfeed and learning from it about what works and doesn’t work. We talked about how it let me “sift” through tons of news and noise and pick things out for my friends to read. He’s very interested in that trend and, indeed, took a lot of shots when he added a newsfeed to Facebook. Now, he notes, that is a key feature of Facebook and even the haters have gotten used to it.
**He attended Vladimir Putin’s talk and thought Putin’s talk was interesting. “He is running Russia like the CEO of a big oil company,” Zuckerberg told me. As we talked it was clear that Zuckerberg analyzes how other people run things and is looking for positive things to do with his own company and is looking for what turns him off. He studied Psychology at Harvard and I see that training come out when discussing world events with him. You can also see his understanding of how people work all through Facebook.
**He, along with Tony Blair, will be running the coat check at tonight’s Women’s Dinner. He was trying to rope Jet Li, famous martial arts star, into doing it too.
Anyway, I like the new intensity, but I did note that he was still wearing jeans and had his top button undone. Casual intensity. Sounds like Facebook is growing up, doesn’t it?
I have other photos from Davos up on my Flickr account.
I like this blog post. With all the money he must be making…he better be wearing a suit lol.
Britney Waldron
http://waldronentertainment.wordpress.com/
I like this blog post. With all the money he must be making…he better be wearing a suit lol.
Britney Waldron
http://waldronentertainment.wordpress.com/
Facebook is going to fail as it is run like a communist dictatorship. They only permit “normal” behaviour, that is ridiculous. The only people worth talking too are not normal.
Facebook is going to fail as it is run like a communist dictatorship. They only permit “normal” behaviour, that is ridiculous. The only people worth talking too are not normal.
Scoble, you smarmy fathole – great interview. Loved hearing about krazy zucks wearing a tie (gasp!). I was enthralled by your every sycophantic observation. He though Putin was interesting! Facebook is intense! Top button…. wait… wait for it…. UNDONE!
Friendfeed, Friendfeed, Friendfeed!!!
Unbridled genius. Keep up the slobbering tone – don’t change, baby. DONT CHANGE!
Scoble, you smarmy fathole – great interview. Loved hearing about krazy zucks wearing a tie (gasp!). I was enthralled by your every sycophantic observation. He though Putin was interesting! Facebook is intense! Top button…. wait… wait for it…. UNDONE!
Friendfeed, Friendfeed, Friendfeed!!!
Unbridled genius. Keep up the slobbering tone – don’t change, baby. DONT CHANGE!
Oh Boy! WEF! I place a lot of trust in these putzes! Considering they are the ones that orchestrated the current world economic crisis I place zero value in learning, aligning or trusting anything these weazels have to say.
To quote Groucho Marx: “… I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member”. Anyone who hangs around the WEF is suspect of perpetuating the economic climate. Zucherberg included.
Oh Boy! WEF! I place a lot of trust in these putzes! Considering they are the ones that orchestrated the current world economic crisis I place zero value in learning, aligning or trusting anything these weazels have to say.
To quote Groucho Marx: “… I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member”. Anyone who hangs around the WEF is suspect of perpetuating the economic climate. Zucherberg included.
[...] blogger Robert Scoble mentioned the plan in a blog post from a discussion he said he had this week with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, [...]
The only thing that will get us outta the trench is a broad Reagan 1982 Economic Policy, but we are getting the New New Bailout-Forever Deal. Guess we will need World War III to get the economy moving again.
The only thing that will get us outta the trench is a broad Reagan 1982 Economic Policy, but we are getting the New New Bailout-Forever Deal. Guess we will need World War III to get the economy moving again.
The only thing that will get us outta the trench is a broad Reagan 1982 Economic Policy, but we are getting the New New Bailout-Forever Deal. Guess we will need World War III to get the economy moving again. I say that half jokingly, but only half.
The only thing that will get us outta the trench is a broad Reagan 1982 Economic Policy, but we are getting the New New Bailout-Forever Deal. Guess we will need World War III to get the economy moving again. I say that half jokingly, but only half.
[...] It’s sort of cute, really: blogger Robert Scoble went on a nice snowy stroll with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg while the two were in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Of course, he wrote about it. [...]
[...] we’ll be able to track people’s ’sentiment’ to the news and their lives as Mark Zuckerberg explained to Robert Scoble at Davos. “He also told me that the sentiment engine notices a lot of ‘going out’ kinds of [...]
[...] Zuckerberg: Facebook’s “intense” year Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, in a tie? Oh my. If you know Mark you know he’s a pretty casual dresser. [...] [...]
I’m glad you’re in Davos and this is a pretty good interview. But *somebody* has to ask Mark Zuckerberg the questions Lacy asked and couldn’t get answers to, remember? Like, does he *really* think he’s worth that billion?
Also, it’s pretty creepy that he thinks there’s something positive about Putin and his running Russia like an oil company. Ugh. Why does neo-fascism always so impress the technocommies? In fact, running Russia like an oil company is not going to work so hot this year as the price of oil is down and his popularity was only tied to the higher price of gasoline.
Let’s hope Zuckerberg doesn’t great Putin ideas into Facebook like presiding over the closure of free media and the murder of journalists.
I’m glad you’re in Davos and this is a pretty good interview. But *somebody* has to ask Mark Zuckerberg the questions Lacy asked and couldn’t get answers to, remember? Like, does he *really* think he’s worth that billion?
Also, it’s pretty creepy that he thinks there’s something positive about Putin and his running Russia like an oil company. Ugh. Why does neo-fascism always so impress the technocommies? In fact, running Russia like an oil company is not going to work so hot this year as the price of oil is down and his popularity was only tied to the higher price of gasoline.
Let’s hope Zuckerberg doesn’t great Putin ideas into Facebook like presiding over the closure of free media and the murder of journalists.
[...] really know what to do with it yet or where it will lead to. At least, this is according to Robert Scoble, the ubber geek blogger who was spending some time with Mark Zuckerberg at World Economic Forum in [...]
Man, I seriously love your blog. How do you get all these inside scoops? Great Read!
Man, I seriously love your blog. How do you get all these inside scoops? Great Read!
Okay so Mark has done a great job building Facebook up. However, I’m sorry it seems to me that you were only allowed to talk because you went easy on him. There are major issues with Facebook (major security hole that wasn’t plugged for over six months, killing accounts for no good reason, ignoring any contact from users who have issues and generally behaving like the playground bully), which he and his team need to be seriously taken to task over. So if Mark is becoming the Bill Gates of this generation then given the lessons learned about the appallingly dictatorial way that MS treat their customers why are people (that is IT journalists) being so nice and glossing over flaws?
Okay so Mark has done a great job building Facebook up. However, I’m sorry it seems to me that you were only allowed to talk because you went easy on him. There are major issues with Facebook (major security hole that wasn’t plugged for over six months, killing accounts for no good reason, ignoring any contact from users who have issues and generally behaving like the playground bully), which he and his team need to be seriously taken to task over. So if Mark is becoming the Bill Gates of this generation then given the lessons learned about the appallingly dictatorial way that MS treat their customers why are people (that is IT journalists) being so nice and glossing over flaws?
[...] Mark Zuckerberg, sporting a tie, demoed it at Davos. He also shmoozed with Robert Scoble about Facebook’s “intense” year, and defended Facebook’s arbitrary and secretive banning policy: He also said that his system [...]
[...] Facebook is trying to study sentiment (could that be used as an investment tool)? Fred Wilson highlighted the bloat that exists at many Web 2 companies, which holds them back from profitability. Chris Anderson, who promotes the concept of free with his new book, notes that free is pushing against its limits, and entrepreneurs are going to have to start charging during a period of limited VC backing: What about the oldest trick in the book: actually charging people for your goods and services? This is where the real innovation will flourish in a down economy. It’s now time for entrepreneurs to innovate, not just with new products, but new business models. [...]
Excellent coverage of Davos…
Great to know about his casual intensity, but Scoble where is your fashion report?
We want to know what you chose to wear and how it is indicative of the coming year
Thanks for a great post.
Excellent coverage of Davos…
Great to know about his casual intensity, but Scoble where is your fashion report?
We want to know what you chose to wear and how it is indicative of the coming year
Thanks for a great post.
[...] had noticeably dressed up for Davos, telling blogger Robert Scoble it was to denote that this was Facebook’s ‘intense’ year. The Facebook founder bio page has had a recent addition. And as for Engagement Ads? Well, [...]
[...] had noticeably dressed up for Davos, telling blogger Robert Scoble it was to denote that this was Facebook’s ‘intense’ year. The Facebook founder bio page has had a recent addition. And as for Engagement Ads? Well, [...]
450,000 new users joining every day. Wooooow
450,000 new users joining every day. Wooooow
Whoaa… zuckerberg and jet li. that’s awesome. jet li should do the coat check… it’s a womens dinner. come on.
Whoaa… zuckerberg and jet li. that’s awesome. jet li should do the coat check… it’s a womens dinner. come on.
There is no “average” user on a powerlaw curve.
If Facebook doesn’t understand that memes can have friends, someone else will overtake them eventually. It’s not just about who you’ve had to your house for dinner. When they limit people’s ability to connect, they crash the network economy within their system.
There is no “average” user on a powerlaw curve.
If Facebook doesn’t understand that memes can have friends, someone else will overtake them eventually. It’s not just about who you’ve had to your house for dinner. When they limit people’s ability to connect, they crash the network economy within their system.
very Insightful interview but to be very frank I like twitter
very Insightful interview but to be very frank I like twitter
[...] had noticeably dressed up for Davos, telling blogger Robert Scoble it was to denote that this was Facebook’s ‘intense’ year. The Facebook founder bio page has had a recent addition. And as for Engagement Ads? Well, we’ll [...]
[...] Facebook is trying to study sentiment (could that be used as an investment tool)? Fred Wilson highlighted the bloat that exists at many Web 2 companies, which holds them back from profitability. Chris Anderson, who promotes the concept of free with his new book, notes that free is pushing against its limits, and entrepreneurs are going to have to start charging during a period of limited VC backing: What about the oldest trick in the book: actually charging people for your goods and services? This is where the real innovation will flourish in a down economy. It’s now time for entrepreneurs to innovate, not just with new products, but new business models. [...]
[...] Zuckerberg Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 | Uncategorized | Miller I just wanted to link up a good article from Robert Scoble about his catching up with Mark Zuckerberg at Davos. The obviously talked about all things [...]
Great post Scoble. Love how its just very conversational.
Really interested in the ‘sentiment behavior engine’.
I think there’s a huge opportunity in using this data for tailoring news, understanding user behavior and being able to extrapolate that data into personalized marketing. For instance, maybe you should see ads on a Saturday morning for vitamins or medication, but not ads for alcohol (can beer companies even adverstise on Facebook????) if your profile status is ‘hungover’.
@ryancmiller
Great post Scoble. Love how its just very conversational.
Really interested in the ‘sentiment behavior engine’.
I think there’s a huge opportunity in using this data for tailoring news, understanding user behavior and being able to extrapolate that data into personalized marketing. For instance, maybe you should see ads on a Saturday morning for vitamins or medication, but not ads for alcohol (can beer companies even adverstise on Facebook????) if your profile status is ‘hungover’.
@ryancmiller
[...] Cake Photo from USB Drive Scoble Chats with Zuckerberg Geek Social Aptitude [...]
[...] “sentiment” research, and what that could mean for the future of Facebook. According to Scoble, Facebook is, he told me, studying “sentiment” behavior. It hasn’t yet used that research in [...]
[...] material. When she asked for an explanation, they told her to read the terms and conditions. When Scoble asked Zuckerberg about it he gave an annoying explanation about how the company would rather have [...]
[...] Facebook, as we’ve written in the past here, is trying to become the whole Internet. They’re spreading their tentacles far and wide in an attempt to become embedded into the very fabric of the Internet. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but that’s how I think they’re positioning themselves. Mark Zuckerberg talks about Facebook as a utility that promotes sharing, but really, they’re building an alternate web that knows everything about you. In fact, they might even know what you’re feeling. [...]
he had the tie also at the DLD conference in Munich some days before but was (maybe) so shy to not show it
… look the photo below at this link
http://giovannidepaola.nova100.ilsole24ore.com/2009/01/dld-a-munich-little-creative-italy.html
he had the tie also at the DLD conference in Munich some days before but was (maybe) so shy to not show it
… look the photo below at this link
http://giovannidepaola.nova100.ilsole24ore.com/2009/01/dld-a-munich-little-creative-italy.html
[...] When she askked for an explanation, thisy end told her end to read this terms end conditions. When Scoble askked Zuckerberg about it he gave an annoying explanation about how this company would rathisr [...]
[...] had noticeably dressed up for Davos, telling blogger Robert Scoble it was to denote that this was Facebook’s ‘intense’ year. The Facebook founder bio page has had a recent addition. And as for Engagement Ads? Well, [...]