Facebook Interviewer Heckled at Web Conference

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.

Video of Sarah Lacy's version of what happened

[dstone]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ccLJnICdJGI [youtube.com]

She's made of Teflon(R), apparently.

Re:Too bad...

[millwall]

Too bad the article doesn't tell us what the purportedly clueless interviewer *did* ask.

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 /. first page?

Re:Too bad...

[eldavojohn]

Valley Wag does [valleywag.com]. The twitter feeds are basically asses calling her stupid and what not. She reportedly replied that she hates everyone on the twitter feed. Oh well, another attention whoring soap opera to avoid in my eyes.

At least slightly better Wired.com article

[\\]

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke.html [wired.com]

HOWTO: Privacy on Facebook

[rice_burners_suck]

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.

Re:It's a difficult balance

[CodeBuster]

Random ads are less likely to affect my behavior, so I find them more acceptable.

Why not declare your independence from ads permanently? Adblock Plus [mozilla.org]...accept no substitutes.

TWiT and why the Interviewer sucked

[strredwolf]

This is on This Week In Tech #135 [www.twit.tv] in which Robert Scoble reported from South by Southwest (SxSW) about the uproar: Sarah Lacy was playing softball and flirting with Mark Zuckerberg, and the audience as well as Mark was expecting hard though questions. At the right point the audience interrupted, which made Sarah go defensive -- a bad move that made her loose control of the interview.

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!

Re:Video of Sarah Lacy's version of what happened

[MrMunkey]

Here's a video of the actual interview. I don't think it's the whole thing though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LxZ6-O5R1zs [youtube.com]

Re:Too bad...

[Furry Ice]

Here's a video of the interview: http://www.austin360.com/news/mplayer/sxsw/73367 [austin360.com]

pimply-faces teens interviewing each other

[peter303]

Just because one of the two was really smart and rich, doesnt mean they have well developed social skills yet. Zuckerberg cratered on 60 Minutes when Leslie started asking hard questions.

Re:Probably set up

[jcnnghm]

Pageviews and revenue. It is widely held that Facebook is profitable, by some accounts, highly. In addition to that, the demographic generating the pageviews is one of the most difficult to reach with conventional marketing, making them highly valuable.

Re:It's a difficult balance

[Fex303]

Lets look at your example for a minute. Mid-range orange juice is your optimal choice, but the marketing of the organic OJ has you thinking that if you made a little more money you'd choose them. Why? Because it's labeled organic it must be better?

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 been convinced it does by evil marketing, no it's really a very different product. It tastes exactly the same as fresh squeezed (and therefore varies by season), it has proper pulp, and it goes off really fast since there's no preservatives.

Anyhow, the rest of your rant is thusly invalidated.

Re:Get a suit, Zuck!

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to subtract 2-3% from each of the interest rates you're using and reinvest it, or your interest income will not keep pace with inflation.