Mark Zuckerberg won’t tell you his favorite Facebook application (Charlene Li just asked him on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit) but I will. It’s Feedheads (just was renamed from Google Reader Shared Items App). Louis Gray has the details.
If every app were as well done as this one Kara Swisher wouldn’t be able to call Facebook apps “toys.”
You all should spend some time understanding what this app does. It’s deep and uses the social graph in a way that I haven’t seen any other app do.
Scobleizer 
Robert, if you were in there then there were more important things Zuckerberg said. Your audience may benefit more from knowing those other things and your take on them.
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Robert, if you were in there then there were more important things Zuckerberg said. Your audience may benefit more from knowing those other things and your take on them.
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I wasn’t there. But San Jose Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi was there. Read his report here: http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2007/10/17/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-opens-the-web-20-conference-in-qa-with-john-batelle/
What’s my take?
Zuckerberg is about to finish up on funding and sounds like he got a $10 billion or more valuation.
He said the company has 45 million users now and 6,000 applications. More than 100,000 developers are creating third-party applications on Facebook’s social networking platform.
We knew that already.
I knew he was running his company at breakeven, and that he had about 700 employees (they are hiring like mad, I was there recently and three recruits were in the lobby).
He reserved the right to build apps based on what third-party developers build.
I knew that Zuckerberg had its own advertising play coming. Kara Swisher has seen it. That’s why there’s so much hype behind Facebook.
Did you see him say something else you wanted me to react to?
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I wasn’t there. But San Jose Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi was there. Read his report here: http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2007/10/17/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-opens-the-web-20-conference-in-qa-with-john-batelle/
What’s my take?
Zuckerberg is about to finish up on funding and sounds like he got a $10 billion or more valuation.
He said the company has 45 million users now and 6,000 applications. More than 100,000 developers are creating third-party applications on Facebook’s social networking platform.
We knew that already.
I knew he was running his company at breakeven, and that he had about 700 employees (they are hiring like mad, I was there recently and three recruits were in the lobby).
He reserved the right to build apps based on what third-party developers build.
I knew that Zuckerberg had its own advertising play coming. Kara Swisher has seen it. That’s why there’s so much hype behind Facebook.
Did you see him say something else you wanted me to react to?
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Robert, you have a factual error. He said Facebook has about 300 employees. Not 700. His guess was that Facebook might have 700 employees in one year.
I think the article you link is great but is missing many important points. Let me try to fill in as I remember things. Usual disclaimer: No guarantee of correctness or completeness from me either.
One of the persons in audience asked who owned the data in a Facebook profile, the user or the audience. Zuckerberg said the users. The person asked would Facebook enable the users to take the profile and use it anyway they like. Zuckerberg said, eventually.
Zuckerberg also gave assurance despite the language in Facebook’s terms and condition that his company will compete with outside application providers on equal footing if it is doing some competing applications in house. He also mentioned that somebody who is focusing on one application would do a better job than Facebook on creating that application.
Even the item you covered is sort of not appropriately represented. After saying that he has no favorite. He said “we are neutral”. That’s symbolic. Symbols are important, especially since he did not really respond when Battelle mentioned do-no-evil, another symbol.
Zuckerberg was in three modes. He either gave quick and straight answers. Or he sort of declined to answer. Or he frequently jumped to Facebook’s vision and newsfeed as an example that Facebook is moving fast and his company needs a lot of flexibility to maintain the momentum.
Overall Zuckerberg looked quite confident in Facebook’s future potential. In his answers he demonstrated enterpreuner skills for creating a long term company. I think he understands that user trust would be more important to Facebook than it is for Google. He also did not see any need to hire a more mature CEO, like Google hired Eric. He also did not use any big bold statements.
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Robert, you have a factual error. He said Facebook has about 300 employees. Not 700. His guess was that Facebook might have 700 employees in one year.
I think the article you link is great but is missing many important points. Let me try to fill in as I remember things. Usual disclaimer: No guarantee of correctness or completeness from me either.
One of the persons in audience asked who owned the data in a Facebook profile, the user or the audience. Zuckerberg said the users. The person asked would Facebook enable the users to take the profile and use it anyway they like. Zuckerberg said, eventually.
Zuckerberg also gave assurance despite the language in Facebook’s terms and condition that his company will compete with outside application providers on equal footing if it is doing some competing applications in house. He also mentioned that somebody who is focusing on one application would do a better job than Facebook on creating that application.
Even the item you covered is sort of not appropriately represented. After saying that he has no favorite. He said “we are neutral”. That’s symbolic. Symbols are important, especially since he did not really respond when Battelle mentioned do-no-evil, another symbol.
Zuckerberg was in three modes. He either gave quick and straight answers. Or he sort of declined to answer. Or he frequently jumped to Facebook’s vision and newsfeed as an example that Facebook is moving fast and his company needs a lot of flexibility to maintain the momentum.
Overall Zuckerberg looked quite confident in Facebook’s future potential. In his answers he demonstrated enterpreuner skills for creating a long term company. I think he understands that user trust would be more important to Facebook than it is for Google. He also did not see any need to hire a more mature CEO, like Google hired Eric. He also did not use any big bold statements.
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Kamal: his sister told me his favorite app is Scrabulous. I totally understand why he wouldn’t say on stage he has a favorite. Other developers might be pissed.
Yup. When I’ve met Zuckerberg he is VERY media astute. He gives me the same feelings I got when I met with Bill Gates.
Totally agreed with your analysis.
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Kamal: his sister told me his favorite app is Scrabulous. I totally understand why he wouldn’t say on stage he has a favorite. Other developers might be pissed.
Yup. When I’ve met Zuckerberg he is VERY media astute. He gives me the same feelings I got when I met with Bill Gates.
Totally agreed with your analysis.
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Robert,
What do you think of Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com), and their Facebook app ?
Their service gives you a combined feed of *a lot* of your services (like Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Google Reader shared items/shared stuff, YouTube, etc ) which then can be shared in several ways. With the Facebook app installed they´ll autmatically subcribe you when a (facebook) friend starts to use FriendFeed.
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Robert,
What do you think of Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com), and their Facebook app ?
Their service gives you a combined feed of *a lot* of your services (like Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Google Reader shared items/shared stuff, YouTube, etc ) which then can be shared in several ways. With the Facebook app installed they´ll autmatically subcribe you when a (facebook) friend starts to use FriendFeed.
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Of note, Robert. Since your post and mine, Feedheads has grown from the 350+ user range to beyond 600. Nice work.
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Of note, Robert. Since your post and mine, Feedheads has grown from the 350+ user range to beyond 600. Nice work.
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Are you in need of a custom Facebook application or an OpenSocial application for social network? We are happy to build even the most robust applications to help promote your company in the realm of social media across any social network.
Visit now: http://opensocialfactory.com or http://opensocialfactory.net
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