So I originally wrote this for elsewhere. I am at the SXSW event. Everyone has covered it since and the previous outlet has decided not to run with it, so here is my take on the Zuckerberg keynote at its most controversial and unedited:

Mark Zuckerberg is rich, Facebook is about communication and Business Week reporter Sarah Lacy doesn’t have a clue about anything regarding social networking or Web 2.0 it would seem. Those are the choicest bits of information gleaned from Zuckerberg’s keynote moderated by Lacy.

Information was sparse, with Zuckerberg delivering only that which is readily available everywhere. This resulted mainly from Lacy spending the majority of her time on stage flirting with Zuck, twirling her hair and reminding him how young he is. With the remainder of the duration she posed questions similar to that of a bumbling layman with zero depth on her topic.

This fact is particularly ironic considering her book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of the Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 is set to cover that topic “in-depth” (and it’s available for pre-order on Amazon now, a factoid she diverted precious keynote time to for shilling).

Toward the end Zuckerberg finally told her to ask a real question and the crowd clapped steadily for over a minute. The effect was palpable, Lacy’s self-esteem shriveled so quickly that it created a vacuum effect that ended in a small pop where she whined that her job wasn’t as easy as it looks and finally decided to switch to a “Digg-style interview” where people lined up to the mics for questions. These five minutes were exceedingly more informative than the preceding 55.

The only thing new that came from the panel was an announcement that Facebook would be available in French tonight. Although, according to Lacy, that means it’s available in France, because that’s the only place people speak French (and Facebook in Spanish equals access in Spain).

SXSW should take note on this one as a big opportunity was missed here. The quality of questions from the audience was excellent and informative, whereas the moderator’s were fueled by self-interest in book sales. Fortunately Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read/Write Web is interviewing him for real tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: sarah lacy, mark zuckerberg, faceboook, open social, business week

Share this on: