Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage in a packed auditorium here in Cannes to explain where he sees the world going. It's going to be a lot more open, a lot more connected and a lot more personalized. He believes Facebook, if it executes correctly, can get to 1 billion users worldwide from the 500 million it has today. In an interview with Ad Age executive editor Abbey Klaassen, Zuckerberg said he's banking on people seeing continued benefits to sharing information with each other—and critically, altering their notions of privacy.
The privacy question, to Zuckerberg, involves balancing the need to give people control and maintain openness. He said there's a "natural tension" between the two. Zuckerberg didn't make any grand pronouncements. Instead, clad in a T-shirt rather than his trademark hooded sweatshirt, he explained to the ad world how he sees communications becoming more transparent and more two-way. That applies to advertising, too. Facebook has offered advertisers ads that allow some measure of dialog with users, whether letting them broadcast to their friends that they "like" a brand or through polling and other social features of the site.
The key is that media is getting personalized. "We're going to look back at this and wonder why it wasn't always like that," Zuckerberg said. That's going to upend sectors. Gaming is one area that's seen a big shift, with companies like Zynga stealing a march on incumbent gaming companies by building social games. "The games are designed around the core assumption that you're doing it with your friends," he said.
Regarding the company's future, the 26-year-old Zuckerberg said he doesn't plan on stepping aside for a more seasoned CEO anytime soon. He'll continue to focus on product development, he said, since that's critical to Facebook achieving its mission of leading a more open and connected world...ADWEEK
Showing posts with label Mark Zuckerberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Zuckerberg. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Simon Mainwaring: Mark Zuckerberg: Everyone’s favorite privacy pinata
It looks like Mark Zuckerberg will continue to be everyone’s favorite punching bag this week. I’ve written earlier as to why I believe the issue is much larger than Zuckerberg or Facebook, and Robert Scoble did a great piece yesterday reminding us exactly what Mark has already achieved – to his benefit and ours – at the tender age of 26.
One thing Scoble wrote is critical in explaining Facebook’s recent privacy dance and why we might just want to reconsider running him out of office (as Shel Israel, Therese Poletti and even Scoble ultimately suggest).
I’ve been studying Zuckerberg for a while and comparing notes with people who know him even better than me, like David Kilpatrick, who wrote an excellent book on Facebook, and it’s clear Zuckerberg has a vision for changing the world with social technologies.
I have been harping on this fact for sometime and here’s why I believe his role is critical to Facebook and the potential of the social web.
Mark Zuckerberg is a CEO with a vision.
In my experience the single most important factor in distingishing between good and great companies is a leader with vision. Now, you may not agree with that vision and clearly individual privacy is going to be a casualty to some degree however this shakes out, but the relentless evolution of the web and the annoying issue of privacy will not disappear if Zuckerberg steps down.
Who can forget Steve Jobs vision for the launch of Apple in 1983? Or Richard Brandson’s mercurial ability to persistently position a multi-facted, global corporation as a rebel. Or the seismic shift in Pepsico’s marketing since Indra Nooyi’s declaration that the mission of the company is ‘Performance with purpose’. In each case the success of the company was a function of a leader with vision.
Do I think Zuckergerg is in that league? Yes, I do (did I mention I’ve never met him?) Judging by his success to date and the fact that he has a vision grounded in the latest web with all the advantages of youth, I think he is well qualified to have a strong and substantive opinion. To date that vision is hard to understand as it has been scattered through sound bites, speeches in Europe and book excerpts. No doubt Fitzgerald’s book will go a long way to addressing this issue but in the meantime Kim-Mai Cutler of SocialBeat outlined many of the key elements of his thinking. I agree with Cutler that the onus is now on Zuckerberg to lay out this vision so that we may fully understand where he and Facebook is headed.
Of course, there are those that characterize his vision as sinister, exploitative or out of touch. I would suggest the contrary. As the architect of so much success in the very space we are talking about, I think he has a very good idea of the issues involved. And the drive to monetize Facebook or to develop the platform is hardly revolutionary – it’s called doing business. If we don’t like these changes we always have the right not to participate. But I do not remember Zuckerberg promising that Facebook would never change or seek to monetize its business model.
As I try to think of visionaries among the architects of the recent web, they seem few and far between. Zuckerberg may sweat too much under the lights, he may overstep the mark with privacy changes and then apologize, he may court the accusation of betrayal from users on a daily basis, but I don’t believe anything is to be gained by running him out of the C suite.
There is something very powerful going on when you consider the compounded connectivity of social networks, smart phones, mobile apps, location based services and the social web. Something potentially transformative. Yes, it will come at a price – every leap forward does. But when you consider the number of global crises we face, and the unrealized potential of this global connectivity through the web, I believe that there is a vision of the future that is only starting to emerge that might just be critical to the survival and well-being of millions of lives. So I say let Zuckerberg stay where he is, maybe parse out his duties a little bit more and give him time to explain himself. At the very least let’s hear him out. The combination of youth, tech savvy and vision is rare in a successful, future-facing company. We may yet all have something to gain...Simon Mainwaring
One thing Scoble wrote is critical in explaining Facebook’s recent privacy dance and why we might just want to reconsider running him out of office (as Shel Israel, Therese Poletti and even Scoble ultimately suggest).
I’ve been studying Zuckerberg for a while and comparing notes with people who know him even better than me, like David Kilpatrick, who wrote an excellent book on Facebook, and it’s clear Zuckerberg has a vision for changing the world with social technologies.
I have been harping on this fact for sometime and here’s why I believe his role is critical to Facebook and the potential of the social web.
Mark Zuckerberg is a CEO with a vision.
In my experience the single most important factor in distingishing between good and great companies is a leader with vision. Now, you may not agree with that vision and clearly individual privacy is going to be a casualty to some degree however this shakes out, but the relentless evolution of the web and the annoying issue of privacy will not disappear if Zuckerberg steps down.
Who can forget Steve Jobs vision for the launch of Apple in 1983? Or Richard Brandson’s mercurial ability to persistently position a multi-facted, global corporation as a rebel. Or the seismic shift in Pepsico’s marketing since Indra Nooyi’s declaration that the mission of the company is ‘Performance with purpose’. In each case the success of the company was a function of a leader with vision.
Do I think Zuckergerg is in that league? Yes, I do (did I mention I’ve never met him?) Judging by his success to date and the fact that he has a vision grounded in the latest web with all the advantages of youth, I think he is well qualified to have a strong and substantive opinion. To date that vision is hard to understand as it has been scattered through sound bites, speeches in Europe and book excerpts. No doubt Fitzgerald’s book will go a long way to addressing this issue but in the meantime Kim-Mai Cutler of SocialBeat outlined many of the key elements of his thinking. I agree with Cutler that the onus is now on Zuckerberg to lay out this vision so that we may fully understand where he and Facebook is headed.
Of course, there are those that characterize his vision as sinister, exploitative or out of touch. I would suggest the contrary. As the architect of so much success in the very space we are talking about, I think he has a very good idea of the issues involved. And the drive to monetize Facebook or to develop the platform is hardly revolutionary – it’s called doing business. If we don’t like these changes we always have the right not to participate. But I do not remember Zuckerberg promising that Facebook would never change or seek to monetize its business model.
As I try to think of visionaries among the architects of the recent web, they seem few and far between. Zuckerberg may sweat too much under the lights, he may overstep the mark with privacy changes and then apologize, he may court the accusation of betrayal from users on a daily basis, but I don’t believe anything is to be gained by running him out of the C suite.
There is something very powerful going on when you consider the compounded connectivity of social networks, smart phones, mobile apps, location based services and the social web. Something potentially transformative. Yes, it will come at a price – every leap forward does. But when you consider the number of global crises we face, and the unrealized potential of this global connectivity through the web, I believe that there is a vision of the future that is only starting to emerge that might just be critical to the survival and well-being of millions of lives. So I say let Zuckerberg stay where he is, maybe parse out his duties a little bit more and give him time to explain himself. At the very least let’s hear him out. The combination of youth, tech savvy and vision is rare in a successful, future-facing company. We may yet all have something to gain...Simon Mainwaring
Monday, May 24, 2010
Business Insider: Mark Zuckerberg: "We Just Missed The Mark" - Mark Zuckerberg, Washington Post | May 24, 2010
From The Washington Post: Six years ago, we built Facebook around a few simple ideas. People want to share and stay connected with their friends and the people around them. If we give people control over what they share, they will want to share more. If people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And a world that's more open and connected is a better world. These are still our core principles today.
Facebook has been growing quickly. It has become a community of more than 400 million people in just a few years. It's a challenge to keep that many people satisfied over time, so we move quickly to serve that community with new ways to connect with the social Web and each other. Sometimes we move too fast -- and after listening to recent concerns, we're responding.
Continue reading at The Washington Post >
Read more: Business Insider
Facebook has been growing quickly. It has become a community of more than 400 million people in just a few years. It's a challenge to keep that many people satisfied over time, so we move quickly to serve that community with new ways to connect with the social Web and each other. Sometimes we move too fast -- and after listening to recent concerns, we're responding.
Continue reading at The Washington Post >
Read more: Business Insider
Friday, May 21, 2010
Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
Good morning! Here's what you need to know:
*
Facebook's privacy shenanigans are even worse than previously thought. The Wall Street Journal reports that they (and MySpace, and Digg) secretly shared user-specific data with advertisers. This is much more serious than opt-outs and complicated privacy settings. (For the record, after reading this story we deactivated our Facebook account.)
*
Meanwhile Gawker pulls a page from the tell-all book The Facebook Effect to relate how Mark Zuckerberg built a tool to predict who users will hook up with.
*
Our Startup 2010 conference yesterday was a big success! Check out these pictures of the event.
*
Google's I/O Conference involved about three thousand new products and announcements, from Google TV to an excellent new Android release. Check them out here.
*
Exclusive from our Startup 2010 conference! MLB.com will launch a check-in app for baseball games, likely in mid-July.
*
Why do B-players always think combining will lead to an A product? It almost always leads to a F. It seems Yahoo! and Nokia will enter into a mobile partnership.
*
Are you one of the 11 people who really, really care about which is the better Twitter iPhone app, Seesmic, TweetDeck or Twitter for iPhone
(formerly Tweetie)? Then boy, does TechCrunch have a review for you.
*
Awesome/weird: a 19-year old just filed an S1 (an IPO prospectus) to raise $12,500 for his beer pong company. And paid about two thirds of that in legal fees.
*
The startup iTeleport, which makes a VNC client for iPhones, wrote a great blog post explaining how they became a profitable business not by going for mass distribution but a small, profitable niche.
*
Funny video of the day! (If you're a big nerd like us.) Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes, respectively Deanna Troi and Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, talk about their upcoming space sitcom.
Read more: Business Insider
*
Facebook's privacy shenanigans are even worse than previously thought. The Wall Street Journal reports that they (and MySpace, and Digg) secretly shared user-specific data with advertisers. This is much more serious than opt-outs and complicated privacy settings. (For the record, after reading this story we deactivated our Facebook account.)
*
Meanwhile Gawker pulls a page from the tell-all book The Facebook Effect to relate how Mark Zuckerberg built a tool to predict who users will hook up with.
*
Our Startup 2010 conference yesterday was a big success! Check out these pictures of the event.
*
Google's I/O Conference involved about three thousand new products and announcements, from Google TV to an excellent new Android release. Check them out here.
*
Exclusive from our Startup 2010 conference! MLB.com will launch a check-in app for baseball games, likely in mid-July.
*
Why do B-players always think combining will lead to an A product? It almost always leads to a F. It seems Yahoo! and Nokia will enter into a mobile partnership.
*
Are you one of the 11 people who really, really care about which is the better Twitter iPhone app, Seesmic, TweetDeck or Twitter for iPhone
(formerly Tweetie)? Then boy, does TechCrunch have a review for you.
*
Awesome/weird: a 19-year old just filed an S1 (an IPO prospectus) to raise $12,500 for his beer pong company. And paid about two thirds of that in legal fees.
*
The startup iTeleport, which makes a VNC client for iPhones, wrote a great blog post explaining how they became a profitable business not by going for mass distribution but a small, profitable niche.
*
Funny video of the day! (If you're a big nerd like us.) Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes, respectively Deanna Troi and Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, talk about their upcoming space sitcom.
Read more: Business Insider
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