« Live-Tweeting SXSW: Billy Bob Thornton | Main | Mary Anne Mug Shot »

March 11, 2008

Examining My Own Role in the Zuckerberg/Lacy Twitter Mob

By now you've probably heard about the fiasco that was the Mark Zuckerberg keynote at SXSW 2008. Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old founder of Facebook, was interviewed by Business Week tech journalist Sarah Lacy. Many people in the audience, including myself, thought her tone and method was unprofessional, and said as much over Twitter while the session took place. Before long, hundreds of people were probably tweeting their complaints, some of it professional criticism, some of it sexually hostile. By the time she opened the session for audience questions the mood was downright caustic, and it's almost a miracle the audience didn't tar and feather her.

Ever since the session ended, people have been talking about what a mess it was and the role Twitter played. I've been to countless conference sessions where Twitter's been a useful back channel for sharing information about what's being said. On other occasions, it's been a way to complain about a session and find like-minded people who aren't happy with. The Zuckerberg-Lacy session, though, evoked a Twitter backlash I've never seen before. I was even invited to talk about it this morning on NPR's Bryant Park Project. During that conversation, I felt it necessary to acknowledge that I was one of the people who was complaining about the keynote on Twitter as it was taking place. I also talked about it last night with blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick about how everything spiraled downward, and how vicious it got.

These conversations made made think about whether I, too, crossed the line. I figured the only way to know one way or another was to share exactly what I said on Twitter. You can read the transcript of my twitter posts below.

wifi punking out in room A. Sticking to phone for now.

Free seats at the keynote are going, going - gone?

Groovy music, kinda Gorillaz club remixish, warming up the crowd.

Is that @jonnygoldstein up front holding up his laptop to use his webcam? Use the n95, dude!

Dancing is breaking out.

Sarah: if you don't know who this guy is, please give up your seat.

Zuck: facebook is trying to help people connect, build empathy relationships.

Zuck: we launched Facebook in Spanish, taking off in Colombia to organize against FARC. For some reason the crowd laughed.

So far the conversation's been a bit shallow. Let's pick it up, people.

Zuck: lots of FB users in Lebanon. He said imam but I thought he said eMom.

get to the point, Zuck...

Zuck: FB helps Lebanese kids choose something besides lives of terrorism. What? Come on, now.

The interviewer is a little too Like Oh My God. Ask good questions, please.

Interviewer: so let's talk about me for a while...

Zuck: FB is building an infrastructure, a platform to help solve the world's problems. (is that in their biz plan?)

Zuck: you shouldn't need a big org to have a voice and channel ideas.

Did someone just yellow Microsoft Sucks or This Interviews Sucks? Or was I just thinking the latter?

"the world of advertising is changing" isn't an announcement. It's a comment, an opinion. Not a product launch.

Anyone wanna bolt and go see Jeffrey Tambor instead?

Lacey might as well say it: So, whaddya doin' after the interview? Wanna go hang out?

I'm outta here. what room is tambor?

There's a bridal showcase going on. Gotta be better than the Zuckerberg fiasco.

Reviewing it myself, clearly I was pretty harsh at times. But did I cross the line? What do you think? -andy

Tags: | | | | | | |

Posted by acarvin at March 11, 2008 5:26 PM

Listen to this article Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article