60 Minutes with Facebook’s Zuckerberg
p2pnet news | Advertising:- "He’s been called the toddler CEO" and the "boy wonder".
‘He’ is Facebook guy Sir Mark Zuckerberg of Beacon, and the quotes come from Lesley Stahl in a CBS 60 Minutes interview, who goes on in the pre-show promo, "You seem to be replacing Larry (Page) and Sergei (Brin)," the billionaire Google gurus.
Zuckerberg just stares at her.
"Is that a question?"
So was it, and was this an actual 60 Minutes investigation?
Zuckerberg, "gets off scot free," said Valleywag before the show aired, going on in a post based on the promo clipsS:
Zuckerberg got asked was if he got in trouble at Harvard for launching Facemash, a predecessor of Facebook built from photos he hacked out of school servers. The venerable news organization even got his net worth wrong — he owns 27 percent of Facebook, making him worth $4 billion on paper, not $3 billion. So much for factchecking. Here are the questions we wish CBS’s Lesley Stahl had asked — but doubt she bothered:
Why were Facebook employees allowed to access private user profiles for their own amusement? What have you done to stop that practice?
Why did you bother to launch Beacon ads, and endure a roiling PR crisis over Facebook’s disrespect for users’ privacy, when you don’t even charge for those ads?
How badly, exactly, did you rook Microsoft when you renegotiated your ad deal and took their $240 million?
On that last point, there will be an answer soon. And on Valleywag, not 60 Minutes.
‘Full-blown PR disaster’
The actual segment kicks off saying when a Facebook user bought his wife a diamond ring online, the surprise was ruined because Beacon notified all his friends —- and his wife —- about it on Facebook.
The word spread, but Zuckerberg refused to listen to the people who’d made Facebook so successful until he had a full-blown PR disaster on his hands "including petitions and bloggers writing obituaries,"observes 60 Minutes.
Beacon, "alerts users of Facebook … when their friends buy online merchandise from companies Facebook has a marketing relationship with, acting as a word-of-mouth ad tool," says CBS in the same lead-up, adding:
"The device drew a lot of criticism at launch due to privacy concerns and users’ inability to easily deactivate it."
But that’s the least of it.
"Put another way, it follows users everywhere they go online, reporting back and providing priceless data which would ultimately be used to try to flog them stuff being peddled by Facebook clients," said p2pnet, going on:
"Zuckerberg took a huge amount of flak and a group vigorously protesting the use of Beacon and which pulled thousands of members was actually started on Facebook.
"But taking the normal corporate approach to use complaints —- ie, screw you —- Facebook didn’t cancel Beacon and Zuckerber says in his 60 Minutes interview, ‘It might take some work for us to get this exactly right. This is something we think is going to be a really good thing’."
Beacon still ropes users in without asking them, but they can now opt out, if they can figure out how.
"I guess it shows how difficult it is for a company like yours to make money from advertising and protect people’s real privacy, and their sense of privacy" says Stahl in the promo clip.
"It might take some work for us to get this exactly right," responds Zuckerberg, but, "This is something we think is going to be a really good thing."
What does this have to do with privacy? Nothing. In fact, it’s, "more like canned response of a typical business executive," says voice-over.
And that more than adequately sums the 60 minutes piece up.
So was it an ‘investigation?’
Nope. Sir Mark emerged entirely unscathed.
Stay tuned, and if you saw the interview, feel free to do a review 
And if you didn’t, and if you want to be bothered, here’s part I as it’s posted on YouTube >>>
And here’s part II >>>
Also See:-
Sir Mark Zuckerberg of Beacon – Facebook’s Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes, January 11, 2008
Valleywag – Mark Zuckerberg gets off scot free in "60 Minutes" interview, January 11, 2008
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January 14th, 2008 at 9:42 am
1. You are not a share cropper- Break the chains
2. Be a rebel
3. Change the game
4. Believe in the possibilities
5. Do good
6. At adelph.us “Open” means-
1. Whenever possible using Open Source applications
2. Whenever possible offering the hosted use of these applications free of charge to members
3. Always writing code using existing Open Source standards that are not proprietary or owned by a company ie (Face Book and the rest)
4. Empowering the community (Individuals, Groups, Non Profits, and Companies) with tools that help them to save time and resources
5. Evening the playing field
6. Giving back to the community
7. Giving back to Open Source
8. You control all access of your account
9. You control all access to your content
7. You have the right to control the conversations that you have with Companies
1. You have the right to choose the who, what, when, and where of this conversation
2. Companies must contribute to the community before they can be included in any conversation
3. Whenever possible the entire community should benefit from these conversations
8. You control your account -
1. We will never give your personal data to any third parties without your permission
2. You have control over who has access to your profile information
3. You have control over who has access to your content
4. At anytime you are free to delete your account
5. When you delete your account it is cleared from our Database
January 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am
“”Put another way, it follows users everywhere they go online, reporting back and providing priceless data which would ultimately be used to try to flog them stuff being peddled by Facebook clients,” said p2pnet, going on:”
speaking of lousy fact checking: beacon does not follow users around everywhere they go, that’s not possible without the user installing something locally… facebook’s beacon partners (whoever they are and however many there happens to be) report back to facebook on users actions when the user does something on the partner’s site…
with respect to just those sites, it may seem like that is indistinguishable from being followed around, however there are many sites that are not partners (in fact it’s probably reasonable to say most sites aren’t) and do not report back to facebook so the “follows users everywhere” characterization is *factually incorrect* (and frankly seems like fear-mongering)…
people absolutely should go into their privacy settings in facebook and set the external website settings to the most restrictive state possible (turn beacon off), however…
January 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
“speaking of lousy fact checking” – Speaking of splitting hairs -
“people absolutely should go into their privacy settings in facebook and set the external website settings to the most restrictive state possible (turn beacon off), however”
Why should they have to do that at all?
January 14th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
“Why should they have to do that at all?”
i didn’t say they should *have to*, i said they should… for their own good they should… the world is not an ideal place but being more restrictive with external site privacy settings is an improvement…
January 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Hi Kurt:
My impression is the reader is wondering why s/he should need to worry about applying “external site privacy settings” to begin with.
BTAIM, I like the idea of Facebook and other networking sites as general concepts. Honest. They’re great tools to allow people to communicate with each other and make things happen.
But I definitely don’t like the thought of them using my data and/or info for any reason whatsoever without my express permission. Nor do I like having to opt out of something I didn’t agree to in the first place.
And what I really don’t like is the sneakiness.
IMHO, Zuckerberg and his pals at the other sites should start treating us like friends to be consulted about various moves. We know he has to make a living, we know he has a staff whose salaries have to be met, and we’re aware the site has not only to be maintained, but developed, on an ongoing basis.
So what’s wrong with him saying, in effect, “Hey, folks, we need to do this ____ because of this ___ How do you feel about it and do you have any suggestions?”
That way he’s working with, instead of taking advantage of, his users. And an informed user-base won’t have any room for complaint.
Cheers!
January 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
@jon:
“My impression is the reader is wondering why s/he should need to worry about applying âexternal site privacy settingsâ to begin with.”
and my point was that it’s not about that… frankly s/he *shouldn’t* need to worry about it, but this isn’t a perfect world and in this imperfect world s/he *does* need to worry about it… first take the actions you need to take to protect yourself and then worry about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin…
i’m like you, i like the idea of social sites like facebook but i dislike beacon… however, to be honest, i don’t see any approach to what beacon did or does now that would have been acceptable – simply making the decision making process transparent wouldn’t be enough for me because i think the idea of broadcasting purchases is just too alien from a social perspective…
perhaps if, instead of treating purchases as a defacto endorsement, the data was added to a private pool of items upon which the user could then offer intentional endorsements, reviews, or even warnings at their leisure it might have been better…
i dunno, maybe a transparent decision making process with an open feedback mechanism would have allowed the community to steer the development in a more positive direction, but those feedback mechanisms can be gamed by people with agendas so i wouldn’t hold my breath…
January 14th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
“maybe a transparent decision making process with an open feedback mechanism would have allowed the community to steer the development in a more positive direction, but those feedback mechanisms can be gamed by people with agendas so i wouldnât hold my breath⦔
Nothing ventured, etc. And maybe it is time to experiment: time to make users partner-participants instead of suckers to be exploited at every turn.
Time to try it and see?
Cheers!
January 14th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
@jon:
“Time to try it and see?”
well, maybe now that there are a bunch of people who actually care what direction facebook takes…
February 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
murk loar