Slashdot Log In
Facebook Interviewer Heckled at Web Conference
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:19 AM
from the go-home-and-cry-in-your-billions dept.
from the go-home-and-cry-in-your-billions dept.
jriding writes "Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old billionaire, was the keynote speaker at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Business Week journalist Sarah Lacy took the stage to question Zuckerberg, but the audience quickly grew tired of the topics she focused on, claiming that the real issues were being ignored.
"Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview," claimed audience member, Jason Pontin." The audience apparently wanted to know more about privacy and portability issues, which I guess shouldn't surprise anyone here.
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Funny)
I think the right word to describe this is FAIL [hoboken411.com]
You can't have your urinal cake and eat it too.
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC ran a Money Programme show about social sites earlier in the year and a lot of the people interviewed were shocked and disappointed that their information was being skimmed for advertising purposes. They just wanted to be left alone to enjoy their online embroidery circles, or whatever. But at the end of the day someone has to pay. Assuming you're unable or unwilling to disable the ads isn't it better to be looking at TARGETTED ads rather than random ones?
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
No, marketing is supposed to make you spend money you wouldn't have otherwise spent. If not that, then it's supposed to make you spend money on an option you wouldn't have otherwise chosen. It does this through emotional manipulation, rather than presenting facts and arguing them well, so the better marketed option is usually not the best one.
So ads that are targeted towards me are likely to induce me to spend money I would not have otherwise, and they're likely to make me choose a less optimal option by manipulating my emotions. Random ads are less likely to affect my behavior, so I find them more acceptable. There's really *nothing* good that can come from exposure to marketing.
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
No, marketings purpose is simply to get you to buy a given product. Whether or not you'd have bought that product or a similar one is irrelevant, the purpose is to increase the chance that you buy that particular one, contributing to the revenue of that company who is producing the widget.
Some advertisements use emotional manipulation. Some are informational, aesthetic, logical, or price based. It's a big competitive soup of screaming focussed on getting one thing, YOUR dollar.
I have a few dollars, some expendable, and I am willing to part with them for the right thing, stuff I would have bought anyway, as well as new and innovative products that I gotta have. For me it's DJ gear and music, for some it's antique art.
Personally, I mind LESS if the ads are targeted to me. and there is a better chance I might actually buy some of the ads i have "opted in" for. Unlike the mass advertisements, for example, McDonalds, who waste millions on advertising and will never convince me to buy another hamburger, I don't fall for their crass bullshit. 100% Beef my Ass!
Ads are here to stay, they suck for the most part, but they power the finances that drive the web, so we can't get rid of all of them. Click an ad for something you support today!
(and put a bunch of people you don't into your host file)
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
You make it sound like there's an optimal product out there that all consumers would be best off buying.
To use a real-life example, I can't afford to spend lots of money on orange juice. If I did, I would buy the organic brand with no added anything. However I don't buy the store brand, because it tastes terrible (too sweet). So instead I buy a mid-range brand.
All of those brands have good reasons to exist and reasons to advertise. (To remind people to buy orange juice, to explain what they're all about, etc.) None of the brands are trying to manipulate people into buying something they don't want, simply to provide the right product to the right people.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of third party sources of product information.
You make it sound like there's an optimal product out there that all consumers would be best off buying.
No, but there is always an optimal choice that balances all the factors that play into the decision.
Lets look at your example for a minute. Mid-range orange juice is your optimal
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no. It's because it tastes better. I buy it when I either have a bit of extra cash or think that I'll have guests over for breakfast. So I do actually know what it tastes like. And before you start going on about how it tastes better because I've be
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that was the gist of the second sentence of my post.
Secondly, what you term 'emotional manipulation' is generally referred to as branding. In many cases a rational argument cannot be made for why you should buy one brand or another.
If they're not distinguishable by features, then choose on price. If they're the same price, it really doesn't matter. But you'll be hard pressed finding any recognizable brand that doesn't have a cheaper no-name alternative.
For example there is rational argument to be made for fashion.
There is? Do tell.
Also, lots of brands are marketed using rational argument. Some sort of facts form the basis of most ads, but obviously a 30-second TV spot isn't exactly long enough to go into depth about (say) soap composition.
Just because facts are used doesn't mean the argument is rational. It's not truth, it's truthiness.
Besides which, it's a sad fact that most of the general population don't understand lipid composition all that well, and even if they did, they don't care about it.
True, but soap choice is hardly an important decision for one to make.
If your emotions are really manipulated by what happens in the commercial breaks, then I'd suggest that advertising is the least of your problems.
Oh that's just being silly. Obviously I'm not becoming distraught because of advertisments. But to claim that the constant barrage of emotionally laden imagery has no effect on you is just silly.
Lastly, even if we were to accept your arguments, it doesn't follow that the 'better marketed option is usually not the best one'. At best you're arguing that they're uncorrelated, but I would make a counter-argument that a company that has a competent marketing department is more likely to have other competent departments, and therefor will be making a better product.
No, my arguments didn't directly show that, but from experience that seems to be the case. Companies that make crappy products tend to make up for it with marketing. Companies that make excellent products don't need to trick people into buying them.
Full disclosure: I work in advertising
This [youtube.com] is for you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And you know about those features how? Packaging? Oh, that would be marketing's job.
Apologies, as you've probably realized, I meant to say there is no rational argument to be made for fashion.
Unless you're a soap maker. But still, let's look at something like cars then. Marketed to pro
Mating urge (Score:5, Insightful)
Fanning out a brightly coloured tail, making loud noises, dancing and many many other things that make them more obvious to potential mates, but at the same time more vulnerable to predators.
Posting pictures of yourself in panties, passed out or french kissing on a "social" website is about the same thing.
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want specific pictures of yourself being available to everyone, don't make them available to anyone. No matter how "secure" you make it, the internet makes it possible for just one person with the time and know-how to circumvent security and share the content (or the method of circumvention itself) with the rest of the world. Tangent: The same can be applied to copy protection schemes...it just takes one person to render them useless at preventing all but casual "hey can you copy that disk for me?" piracy.
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It's a difficult balance (Score:5, Funny)
So...just as an example, where would those be?
Parent
Probably set up (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Probably set up (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Probably set up (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Probably set up (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Probably set up (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Probably set up (Score:5, Funny)
I,... I don't understand. Why do you put those two words so close together?
Parent
Re:Probably set up (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
TFA is a waste of time.
Sensational headline - "Facebook founder heckled at web conference", yet providing no proof for this, nor any proof on why the interviewer was clueless.
A couple of bland quotes from Zuckerberg on the Yahoo bid and privacy issues. Good enough for a
Parent
Re:Too bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
The interviewer just didn't do a good job, and was in front of people who witnessed it. The audience should have been more mature, the interviewer should have been more prepared, and a kid who sold his company for a staggering amount of money should have been more interesting.
Parent
scrabulous (Score:3, Funny)
how else am I going to fill the hours spent sitting in front of a computer whilst at work?
Video of Sarah Lacy's version of what happened (Score:5, Informative)
She's made of Teflon(R), apparently.
Re:Video of Sarah Lacy's version of what happened (Score:5, Informative)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LxZ6-O5R1zs [youtube.com]
Parent
Get a suit, Zuck! (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were Mark, I would hire a suit, and put him in front of the crowds, while I stood off to the side and wait for the 'inspirational answer' about the dreamy-dream utopian future and how my software was going to make it happen.
Re:Get a suit, Zuck! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Get a suit, Zuck! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can't survive and "do whatever you want" on 300K+ a year (for "several million") in interest income you're seriously being wasteful with your money. Or you're trying to buy shit that costs millions of dollars, which is generally being wasteful with your money, but agreeably doesn't fall into the category "whatever you want to do".
Parent
At least slightly better Wired.com article (Score:5, Informative)
Sha handles it gracefully (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sha handles it gracefully (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
plan b (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares about privacy and portability... (Score:4, Insightful)
money and reality (Score:4, Insightful)
We live in a society, on the way to be adopted globally, where capitalism is interpreted so narrowly that we have only one linear metric for success: cash.
When you are a billionaire, you can pay for participating in situations where the pitcher tosses you softballs, and if they don't you have enough power to never have to go to bat with them again. Knowing this, the cowardly sheep in the media duly bend over and give deference to rich people. It's not wrong, it just is the way it is when money is the *only* metric we use to evaluate a person's value.
If you have not heard the phrase: "It's just business"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We live in a society, on the way to be adopted globally, where capitalism is interpreted so narrowly that we have only one linear metric for success: cash.
That's the myth that's being perpetuated by those bending over. For me, my family and friends, it's much more important to be loyal to those around you, spend time together, etc. I could earn a lot more money than I do now, but I'd rather spend my weekends with my wife watching stupid movies and enjoying ourselves before we start raising a family.
People lose sight of the fact that money is nothing more than a means to an end, and if you're living life for anything but happiness, you need to get hit by
HOWTO: Privacy on Facebook (Score:4, Informative)
Privacy on Facebook is relatively simple:
- Don't put any personal information into your profile.
- Don't add anyone to your friends whom you don't know personally.
- Don't add any applications and don't give any application permission to run.
- Ignore all "requests" and "invitations."
The only remaining thing is photographs and videos that you or your friends might upload or "tag" you in. I believe you have the choice to confirm the tags, or at least to untag yourself if you prefer not to be named in your friends' photos. I think this particular issue is not that important, because your pictures are probably on the Internet, and on Facebook, whether with or without your name, whether or not you're on Facebook, and you have no control over them anyway. Chances are, that's the case unless you never leave the house.TWiT and why the Interviewer sucked (Score:5, Informative)
Jason Calacanis (in the TWiT podcast) then explained that Sarah's been flirting with Mark for a very long time, and these softball questions are very unprofessional of her.
IMO She really needed a wake-up call -- SxSW live isn't print!
pimply-faces teens interviewing each other (Score:4, Informative)
My take on the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
She kept rambling on and not asking straight-forward questions (they were more statements than questions). Advertising herself and telling her own stories rather than interview the person we were there to hear from. And her response afterwards (seen in one of the youtube links in these comments) is even more appalling. It seems she did no research about the crowd she was interviewing in front of, which caused a huge problem. And to add the comment about how SXSW won't get another big person. Does she realize that last years keynotes were Dan Rather and William Wright (both of with were awesome interviews/presentations). She may be a good writer, but doesn't have a clue how to run a proper live interview.
And not to put all the blame on her, Mark did not help the situation at all. He repeated the same statements over and over, felt like he just kept repeating himself. He also didn't see like the best public speaker (not to say I'm good at it), but he didn't seem ready for what he was thrown into. He could have done some work to steer the presentation in a way that he wanted, but I don't believe he's had enough experience to do this.
Re:My take on the interview (Score:4, Funny)
Is there any other kind?
Parent