Facebook Developer Happy Hour Lunch 2.0 Experiences.
Published by Michael Vu August 1st, 2007 in Facebook, Facebook News, Facebook f8 platform, facebook developer.
I was fortunate enough to attend the Facebook Developer Happy Hour Lunch 2.0 today and had a great time. This was the first time that I’ve been on Facebook’s HQ, so I was focused on being observant, above anything else. There were a lot of people there - a lot of smart and young people mingling like you’ve never seen before. One thing was for sure, you could sense the excitement and energy in the air.
You could bet your socks that everyone in that room was a Facebook user, and that a lot of people in that room, including myself, only knew of the event through Facebook. For that reason, it was as if there was no “ice to break.” Everyone was very friendly, especially Robert Scoble - whom I was lucky enough to engage in a conversation with, just as he grabbed himself a beer. In my brief 5 minute conversation with Scoble, he spoke of how he has about 4,000 friends and now gets so many messages. I told him that it’s just the beginning, that he’ll hit 10,000+ in no time. Then he tells me that Facebook limits a user’s number of friends to only 5,000 friends. Did you know that? I didn’t.
To me, that opens up a whole new can of worms - exclusivity. For most of us 5,000 friends is just too big of a number, so it won’t even matter. But for celebrities, this number can be reached pretty quickly. While I’m all for the limit since it helps battle spam, I can’t help but think that once people know that there’s a limit, there will be a mad scramble to be a celebrities friend. People like Mark Cuban, Michael Arrington, Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble are just a few cases, where the limit will just not be enough…
In any case, this happy-hour-lunch-2.0 event was a joy. Aside from the great people, food, beer, and fruitful conversations, the most prominent message projected that I got from this event was that Facebook has barely gotten started. If you think Facebook is buzzing now, just wait. For those speculators, stop speculating as this will be one of those things where you look back and say, “damn, I shouldn’t have let that opportunity slip by me.”
UPDATE From Rodney: Here is a quick video of the crowd at the event courtesy of Rafe Needleman over at webware.com
Technorati Tags: facebook, facebook lunch, facebook friends, facebook developer
Michael,
Thanks for attending. There are other Lunch 2.0’s that aren’t Facebook. I’ll hit them again when they move to bigger digs (which they’ll have to do sometime soon at the rate they’re growing).
http://www.lunch20.com/
Also, Meagan will kill me if I don’t mention that Facebook will be having a Developer’s Garage on Saturday August 25th 10AM-3PM. So if you missed the Facebook Lunch 2.0 or just didn’t get enough “face time” cornering a Platform team person there, that’s the place to do it. (And if you’re not in the Bay Area, look around, the Facebook evangelists will be at various Developer meetups at a place near you.)
Take care,
terry
Terry,
Thanks for the comment and organizing the event! Too bad we didn’t get to formally meet each other, next time? Lunch 2.0 is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Cheers,
Michael
That sounds like it was a rocking good time. As far as the rush to be the celebrity’s friends… I’ve been pretty much brainwashed out of the celebrity mentality.
There are a few people I admire, and the ones I admire most that I happened to bump into on Facebook, sure I asked for an add. So, I’m sure I will regret it but I’m not going to be in a rush to get on someone’s friend list because of the ceiling. I can still poke them if I want to send a quick message.
What I’m really concerned about is being able to get to the Thinkers in general, celebrity or not, once the noise gets louder. But then again, even with 30 million members, in our corner, Facebook feels so much quieter and calmer than the rest of the web…
I just added a video clip to the blog post. Can any of our readers find themselves or people they know in the video?
I saw Robert Scoble and Professor Meagan Marks (facebook) in the video clip. Enjoy.
Nice video Rodney. As you can see, it was packed!
Gotta basic quick question: how do I get a facebook widget published on my typepad blog that links to my facebook page? Thanks! Dave
Dave,
I believe that Facebook widgets are only for Facebook, unlike traditional widgets that can be embedded almost anywhere.
Hope that helps.
- Michael Vu