How Could I Have Left Out Mark in the Morning With Meredith, While Jim Goes Soprano!?!
In my post–OK, diatribe–yesterday about Facebook and the dangers of it getting so much of the wrong kind of media attention, I neglected to also mention an interview its ubiquitous founder, Mark Zuckerberg, did with the “Today” show’s Meredith Vieira in mid-June.
Since NBC will not let me embed it and it has not hurtled over to YouTube yet, here’s a link to the short chat, in which Zuckerberg did acquit himself well and Vieira not so much (did she have to resort to the what-will-those-crazy-kids-think-of-next attitude and can she really be that perplexed by what the social-networking site might offer someone over 25 years old?).
Still, it is more of the same kind of fluff that needs to be replaced by a rigorous look at the company’s business strengths.
In that vein, the always entertaining Owen Thomas, Valleywag’s newest, I guess, um, Wag, floated an interesting notion in this post that Jim Breyer (pictured here, with his doppelgänger Tony Soprano) of Accel Partners–the big venture backer of Facebook–might use his inside track to measure the popularity of third-party application developers now proliferating on Facebook.
And then, in a move that would make Ma Soprano proud, Breyer would muscle the winners into accepting his investment dollars on his terms.
Thomas also speculates–with no actual proof, although I was riveted by the story line–that Breyer would unleash the specter of uncooperative apps makers getting quashed by Facebook, if they did not acquiesce to his nefarious demands.
Even though I have known Breyer a long time and it is my definitive impression that my 5-year-old son could handily best the doe-eyed VC in a fair fight, it’s apparently always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.
