Technology

"If People Say You're Spammy, You Get Filtered."

AUSTIN (CBS 11 News) ― CBS11TV.com Web Producer Anna Gonazlez is attending SXSW.  She's there covering it as a journalist, but she's also a fan of a lot of the stuff there.  These reports are her impressions of what she's seeing.


Once Facebook.com switched on its Spanish language format, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said young people in Colombia used the site to organize and revolt against guerrilla armies.

The people were able to unite in ways they couldn't before because of this new, effective way of communication. And to Zuckerberg, that's the bottom line, "Everything we think about is through that frame."

Just look at their way of making money. Their ad revenue is based on thinking "the economic engine should be driven by the way people use the site."

When asked about the value of his company, he replied, "The value of the company will hopefully be aligned with the value of the social impact."

His company's mission was driven home a little too well and one too many times, according to many of the people who saw the live interview.

Todd O'Neill, a media producer in San Antonio, joined a few others and walked out of the interview room before it was over. O'Neill said he thought someone had coached Zuckerberg about staying on point.

O'Neill said he was also done listening to interviewer Sarah Lacy, who (in my opinion) was more interested in Zuckerberg's money than in hearing about social change or Zuckerberg's vision of the future.   

At one point, Zuckerberg leaned forward and looked ready to engage the audience instead of listening to Lacy tell another story about him. "I think one day there will be a platform everyone in the world will be using," said Zuckerberg. "I'm not saying it's Facebook --"

"I don't mean to interrupt you, but let's talk about money." Now granted, that's probably not a DIRECT quote, but it was the gist of the next question asked by Lacy.

I have to admit, I don't use Facebook that often, but I wanted to hear what Zuckerberg had to say. The guy is a forward thinker and a leader in the online community. I wanted to hear more about his vision of Web 3.0 and beyond.

I don't use Facebook often because you're constantly prompted to add applications. And what if I don't want someone to see every move I make on the newsfeed? Where's my power to control shared content? Zuckerberg said changes are on the way. 

The way the site will work is very democratic. If an application isn't good, the community will phase it out. "If people say you're spammy, you get filtered," he said. And that's exactly what happened to Lacy.

And to his credit, Zuckerberg is a very humble man. He's not cocky, and his confidence lies in his knowledge of the subject. He deserved a better interview, and we deserve an encore.

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