Facebook on CBS 60 Minutes

Did you see tonight’s 15 minute segment on CBS 60 Minutes on Facebook?

I was hoping to see a story about a young entrepreneur who is being compared to Bill Gates (another Harvard dropout), Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.  In fact, Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes correspondent asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg about the comparison to Brin and Page, and Zuckerburg’s response was priceless.  He stared – in fact gazed at her, paused and said “is that a question?”  His smug response tells me that he considers such talk irrelevant.  

Stahl went on to describe how Facebook began from Zuckerburg’s early days at Harvard, through its evolution with his former college roommates into the social networking giant it has become in just four years. The background coverage was good.  The video of company culture was good, a typical Silicon Valley environment.  But, the segment went downhill when Stahl dragged the interview into the Beacon advertising debacle.  Ok, so it was a mistake.  Zuckerburg apologized for it.  So move on! 

Where was the talk of how the fastest growing demographic is “old people” (adults over the age of 25)?  To give Stahl some credit she did mention it.  I could have coughed and missed that though.  There was no talk of how businesses are using groups and networks to create communities and to share and exchange ideas.  There was some coverage on how application developers can upload applications, but the example showed was Scrabble, a consumer application. 

Of course there was coverage on its staggering market capitalization evidenced by Microsoft’s investment of 1.6 % of Facebook’s stock for $240 million.  That led to discussion about how Facebook produces revenue.  The impression I got was that Stahl was looking for ways to poke holes in the company, especially as she kept referencing his young age – the “toddler CEO” – though she credits this expression to Kara Swisher - a blogger. 

Facebook has a lot of potential to be a really useful and productive tool for both consumers and businesses.  Whether or not it excels at both remains to be seen.  The projection to reach 200 million profiles this year also remains to be seen.  If it does, I think a significant portion of that growth will come from “old people” like me. 

All I know is that I created a profile and a group in Facebook on web marketing and I have visited similar groups.  The conversations and communities are very interesting.  I don’t use Facebook to socialize on a personal level and I find there are plenty of people who (like me) will interact on my topics of interest.

In my opinion 60 Minutes missed the boat big time!  They could’ve talked about the phenomenon of social networking and the impact Zuckerburg’s Facebook is having.  They could’ve talked about how Facebook is crossing generational lines (they did mention it) and how this is the real story of Facebook.  They didn’t really give their viewers a sense of the potential of social networking both for consumers AND for businesses alike. 

Instead, they focused on the negative by devoting so much time and attention to the Beacon issue and even a lawsuit that Zuckerburg faces from some disgruntled Harvard students.

No wonder so many business people shun interviews from the network television stations. 

Form your own opinion of the 60 Minutes story of Facebook and share your comments.