bidbits

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg's Poker Face on 60 Minutes

I made everyone around me be quiet when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was featured by 60 Minutes last Sunday. "What's wrong with him?" asked my baffled cousin, who is a generation older than I and not familiar with the hugely popular Internet social and business networking site facebook.

Leslie Stahl made the point that he can be less than engaging. But on the other hand, when she confronts him with statements such as (I am paraphrasing here) "They say you are the big new thing in Silicon Valley" and "You have replaced the Google guys," what is he supposed to say?

"Is there a question in there somewhere?" he asks, reasonably, after giving her a straight face for a few uncomfortable seconds. You have to laugh.

The "bigger than Google" comment was explained by saying that some say facebook will be the first place people go on the Internet, a dashboard as it were. Which may be true. It's certainly a place a go a lot, and not always to get much done.

But I think comparing it to Google is really apples and oranges.

Still, the most interesting part of the interview was Zuckerberg talking calmly about how they will keep trying ads til they get it right, not seeming too flustered by the problems they had when their Beacon ad program famously went awry and that guy's diamon ring purchase was broadcast to everyone on Earth and some folks on Saturn.

I do hope they get the ad thing right, because I personally would like to advertise my ebooks on facebook.

He also said he did not believe the company would go public in 2008. Oh, and I enjoyed it when he said he lives in a modest one bedroom apartment.

Stay tuned for what happens with facebook...it is sure to be interesting.

Facebook Flyers: Let Us Target Groups in Ads

I've been experimenting with Facebook flyers. Did I mention I love facebook? I'll go with the lower case. I'm not surprised it's growing rapidly and is being courted by Microsoft, Yahoo, and who knows what other Internet big boys.

When I heard about their "flyers" advertising program, I was excited. It sounded like a simple, low-cost way to get an ad out on the Internet to targeted groups of people. The only problem is, although facebook has these natural ready-made groups of people on the site, called, guess what -- groups -- you can't target them with flyers!

No, you can only target a college/university or a "network."  This doesn't work well for a lot of people selling products that would tie in really well with all the myriad facebook groups out there. For example, I sell ebooks about eBay. I don't want to buy a flyer for Washington, DC, or the University of Minnesota...I want to buy a flyer for the "Addicted to eBay" group, and maybe some other facebook eBay groups as well.

This seems like a no brainer to me. C'mon facebook folks, pleez give us groups in ads. Or as the cat on another certain site would say, I Can Has Group Targeting? OK, that didn't work out.

I did write the facebook people to verify that you could not in fact target groups. They thanked me for the idea, but verified that you cannot do it. So maybe they're considering it. Let's hope. Meantime I'll keep you posted as to how my flyers are doing. Not well, at the moment. At this rate, I doubt I'll keep using them, as the keyword/network system just doesn't seem to work well for me and I bet the groups idea would.

In sum: Groups. groups. groups. facebook. please. give. us. groups. in. flyers. mark. zuckerberg. just. for. good. measure.