How Mark Zuckerberg Fooled ‘60 Minutes’

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-how-mark-zuckerberg-fooled-60-minutes/

by Cmccann7 • 16 years ago

27 25 16 years ago

marknutter• 16 years ago

I made sure to watch this interview and its being discussed energetically on Hacker News, so if Zuckerberg fooled 60 minute he's fooled everyone else too. I found the interview extremely interesting - Facebook is becoming a gargantuan and Zuckerberg is on the level of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates now. I know that they got their share of interviews done on their terms in their heydays.

gnaritas3• 16 years ago

> and Zuckerberg is on the level of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates now

He really isn't. Jobs and Gates brought PC's to the masses, nothing Zuck has done is on that level, not even close.

puredemo2• 16 years ago

Zuckerberg brought the use of profile-based websites into the mainstream for hundreds of millions of people. It's a massive shift in communications.

eagleal• 16 years ago

In the eyes of a lot of non tech-savvy people (like my parents, or lots of facebook users), Zuckenberg (or the guy who invented Facebook) is more known than Jobs (the guy who [co-]invented Apple). Despite how those actions weight.

tzs• 16 years ago

But he's aiming for something on that level: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/57933bb8-fcd9-11df-ae2d-00144feab4...

thinkcomp• 16 years ago

This is a good article.

It doesn't take very much to fool 60 Minutes these days, actually. They ceded the crown of investigative journalism to bloggers long ago for better or for worse, and their demographic is rapidly aging to the point where virtually every commercial is for a prescription drug that would only be appropriate for those over sixty. This was an interview meant primarily to encourage younger viewership, but otherwise for the elderly, meaning those who probably don't use Facebook but have heard their children or grandchildren talk about it. It showed.

andrewvc• 16 years ago

The real tv journalism gets done by PBS's Frontline.

fookyong2• 16 years ago

"60 Minutes overplayed a purely cosmetic change"

It's a purely cosmetic change that affects half a billion people. Does every web startup deserve news coverage when they redesign? No. Does facebook? Yup. The impact is larger. Pretty simple.

gnaritas3• 16 years ago

> Does facebook?

No.

pyre• 16 years ago

Does GreenPeace, the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, the US Government, the United Nations, get a 60 minutes interview when they redo their page?

alexgartrell• 16 years ago

If you could prove to me that hundreds of millions of people interacted either any of those web sites (or even all of those websites) in a meaningful way on a regular basis, I would buy your argument.

Facebook has done a lot of redesigns, this is just a redesign that acts as a suitably rich metaphor for highlighting what the "new social web" is all about, or at least what part of the "new social web" is about at a level with which people can follow along.

parano• 16 years ago

Completely ignores fookyong's point. Do any of the sites you mentioned have 250+ million people using it every day?

fookyong2• 16 years ago

to get covered by TV you don't just have to be a big organization, you have to have a story.

as another commenter said,

"this is just a redesign that acts as a suitably rich metaphor for highlighting what the "new social web" is all about"

that creates a narrative that 60-minutes can get behind and milk, for eyeballs, fun and profit.

if the Red Cross poured millions of dollars into an entirely new online strategy that had a strong TV-friendly narrative ("the future of donations is social" or what have you), I'm sure they would be attractive to 60-minutes too. That's only part of the equation though, you need a hot PR team in place who can reach out to major channels like this and pitch the story right. You don't get on TV just by existing.

btmorex• 16 years ago

Well, I don't know about the others, but the US President can preempt any prime time program on every major network whenever he wants. That seems quite a bit more powerful than a 60 minutes interview.

scottshapiro• 16 years ago

The real question is whether the Winklevi fooled anyone.

puredemo2• 16 years ago

Why is that the real question?

How Mark Zuckerberg Fooled ‘60 Minutes’

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