Ramble On Ron » mark zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg Interview With Diane Sawyer

Ron Samuelson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:41:18 +0000

Here’s an except from Diane Sawyer’s interview with Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg. It’s fascinating to me to follow this guy who has this site that is bigger than life, now with 500 million users. Keep it going Mark, we love it!

Do You “Like” Facebook’s Changes?

Ron Samuelson — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:07:55 +0000

Yesterday Facebook announced some major changes at it’s annual f8 developers conference. Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to talk about the “like” button roll out, not just on Facebook itself, but across the web. In Facebook, one major change is on fan pages. So now Fan Pages are just Pages, and your fans are connections who “like” your product or brand. Not a bad move – liking something is a lot less of a commitment than being an actual fan, so I think that this will increase the amount of users on each page. As far as the like button on the web, when you go to websites like CNN, Fandango and others, your friends that read or liked an article, band or movie will be displayed. So basically, Facebook’s plan is to make the web a more social space, rather than an information driven web. Facebook calls it the “Open Graph.” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called the shift “the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the web.” This move also has major implications for ad targeting.

From the CNN article that I “liked”:

The announcement puts Facebook in further competition with other web companies like Google and Twitter, who are also trying to organize and make use of users’ preferences.

Facebook, which has more than 400 million members, says the Open Graph will make it easier for people to share information about their likes and dislikes all over the internet.

The social network will pull information about the websites a person visits, the news stories he or she likes and the music or athletes the person favors — and share all of that information with a person’s Facebook friends. That data will show up on Facebook.com and on other sites.

At Facebook’s f8 developers conference, WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro gives Stacey Delo a post-game analysis of the social-networking company’s announcements, including news on its “like” button and what that means for ad targeting.

Of course, their big plan is to take over the web, and change the way people connect with one another. So far they are succeeding. Most experts that I have spoken to think it’s a smart move. What do you think? How is this going to affect the way you build your online presence/brand?

My Advice to Mark Zuckerberg

Ron Samuelson — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:33:00 +0000

On another Facebook note, I’ve been following the story of Holocaust denial groups allowed on Facebook, and after the recent killing in DC at the Holocaust Museum it’s resurfaced. Here’s a link to Brian Cuban’s open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. I agree with Brian on this one. Here’s my take on it. Zuckerberg is Jewish. He’s listed as Atheist on his Wikipedia profile, but if this were 1942 in Eastern Europe, he’d be on his way to Auschwitz just like the rest of us. I’ll forgive the fact that he scheduled his Vanity URL auction on Friday night, so observant Jews had ZERO chance of getting their URL until Saturday night. Hey, I eat lobster so I got mine. But as a Jew, I would not allow any hate groups on my sites – whether it’s Neo-Nazi, Anti-Israel, whatever. I proudly delete that stuff off my fan page. And if you have a racist or anti-semitic comment to make on this blog, I have the right to delete that too. The argument is this “Free Speech” nonsense. If that were the case why not have nudity on network TV? (wait now that might be cool IF I DIDN’T HAVE KIDS) Why won’t Facebook allow porn? Why not have racist TV commercials or programs on NBC? That’s free speech right? The fact is that Facebook is a privately owned website and Zuckerberg has the right and should exercise his right to take any anti-semitic or racist groups off of his site. They took a few off but the comments of Facebook representative Barry Schnitt are scary. Domino’s Pizza is ready to pull their ads, and more will follow.

Brother Mark, I love your site and it’s helped me out a ton, but do the right thing. After all, we’re fraternity brothers. You were in AEPi (a Jewish fraternity) just like me. You grew up in in New York just like my wife, all of my AEPi friends and everyone else I know. You went to Harvard and created Facebook with Dustin Moskovitz. Facebook kicks ass and you did it. Don’t let the lawyers, advisors and investors persuade you…