Caryn Marooney (pictured here), the co-founder of one of Silicon Valley’s premier tech communications firms, OutCast Agency, is joining Facebook to lead its tech public relations strategy.

Facebook said Marooney is joining the social networking giant in a newly created position as director of technology communications.

That means she will be in charge of outreach to the technical community, Facebook said, including “our product, platform, infrastructure, and technical recruiting communications–to reach developers, engineers, technology influencers and bloggers who write about our products and technology strategy.”

“Caryn’s experience extends beyond technology communications and I’m delighted that we’ll all have the opportunity to draw on her wisdom and insight,” said Facebook global communications chieftain Elliot Schrage.

Marooney has actually led the Facebook account for OutCast, which she and Margit Wennmachers built and sold to Next Fifteen Communications Group in 2005 for over $10 million.

Marooney said in an interview today that she felt the firm was in good hands with its current team of top managers.

“The opportunity at Facebook was too good to pass up,” she said. “It’s an exciting new challenge.”

Indeed, the social networking giant is preparing to go public within the next year and will need an even stronger PR team for that task.

Marooney follows Wennmachers to a company they served as outside communications advisers. Wennmachers joined the high-profile Andreessen Horowitz venture firm last year to work on marketing strategies with companies in which it invested.

But the Olympic rowers and one-time social networking entrepreneurs–one twin’s suit was more pin-striped than the next–were back at it this morning in San Francisco for their biggest hearing yet, in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Unfortunately for them, Facebook’s more polished presentation seemed to go over better with the judges than the Winklevoss’ claim they had been unprepared and uninformed when they finalized a previous settlement.

While I sought network connectivity in the back of the extra-large ornate courtroom, wishing for a Verizon iPhone hotspot, the twins sat stoically and silently in the front as Facebook’s attorney, Orrick partner Joshua Rosenkranz, urged them to let it go, saying they are “big boys,” and “big boys can make deals that bind them.”

The Winklevii, as Silicon Valley folks like to call them, are rehashing a settlement with Facebook from three years ago over the events of seven years ago.

They have now hired new lawyers and appealed a previous judgment, having accused their previous lawyers of malpractice and withheld their attorney fees (a case they also lost).

The twins want that 2008 settlement–which had Facebook buy their ConnectU social network for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares, at that time considered .3 percent of the company–revoked, so they can resume their original lawsuit over Mark Zuckerberg flaking on their project while he started Facebook.

In December, they reportedly considered dropping the matter entirely and keeping what they have already pocketed, but decided they must keep fighting.

The settlement of 2008 was invalid, argued Winklevoss lawyer Jerome Falk of Howard Rice in court today, because terms were not finalized before it was signed, and in particular the portion of the settlement awarded in stock was at a valuation about four times higher than Facebook’s internal valuation at the time.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard from both Falk and Rosenkranz at length, allowing them to exceed their expected time to thoroughly discuss the case. A ruling should be forthcoming about three months from now.

The discussion focused on precise details of California and federal securities law and case law about, for example, whether a mediation session that was confidential could be opened to evaluate whether fraud occurred.

Others involved in the case, such as Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss’ ConnectU o-founder Divya Narendra, were not in attendance.

From the cheap seats, it seemed that the judges were more critical of the Winklevoss argument. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (pictured here) was quite skeptical of the ideas that Facebook needed to disclose its internal valuation and that the settlement agreement signed after mediation was somehow informal.

Judge J. Clifford Wallace commented that the Winklevosses are clearly quite capable and were well-represented during the mediation by their team of lawyers and their father, a former business school professor at Wharton.

“I agree my clients were not behind the barn door when the brains were passed out,” replied Falk.

Judge Barry Silverman harped on why the Winklevosses hadn’t directly asked Facebook what its current valuation was. “This question could have been asked, should have been asked and wasn’t asked,” he said.

In the hallway and outside the courthouse, the Winklevii themselves would only politely say that they look forward to the court’s ruling. Chased by reporters and photographers, they made a quick exit.

Meanwhile Facebook Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy VP Elliot Schrage, who had brought his two young sons to see the hearing in person, commented that the issues at stake are much more exacting details than the personal story of Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses that’s now widely known (in large part due to its Hollywood portrayal in “The Social Network”).

Falk said he thought the court was “thorough and well-prepared,” and he was grateful the court allowed the full arguments to be made.

Besides not willing to compromise their honor, the Winklevii can trace much of their dispute to problems reaching formal agreements, especially with Zuckerberg and his cronies.

They never got Zuckerberg to sign a contract to work for them back at Harvard, and then years later when they got him to settle, they allowed Facebook to set terms that weren’t fully scoped out.

Obviously, they later came to regret it.

Falk said on the courthouse steps that his clients don’t actually want their settlement retroactively valued (combining the Winklevoss’ chosen price and Facebook’s current valuation, their shares would be worth something like $608 million today), but rather to “get their lawsuit back,” so they can keep pursuing it.

Which would mean: More Winklevii!

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

You might think a huge target audience and golden marketing opportunity for a high-profile Hollywood movie on Facebook, titled “The Social Network,” would be the 500 million members of Facebook.

Maybe not so much.

“Facebook’s advertising guidelines don’t allow ads to reference the company unless Facebook has cooperated with the object of the ad,” said Steve Elzer, SVP of Media Relations for Sony (SNE) movie unit Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, in response to a BoomTown query. “So, we won’t be advertising there given these parameters.”

And reference Facebook the film surely does, as you can see from this capture image from its Web site, above, which mimics the social networking site’s look and has a big picture of the actor playing co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg looking like he just was indicted for doing something very naughty.

The tag line: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”

Although the film is not coming out until October, the makers of “The Social Network” are now in the market making plans to tout the controversial movie about the founding of Facebook.

That would include looking for a series of advertising buys online–including inquiries to market it on this site–related to the company, such as linking the movie with topic words such as “privacy.”

No wonder the privacy-challenged Facebook is not having any of it, especially since Zuckerberg publicly expressed distaste for the film in a recent onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference.

He also told me in a conversation there that he dreads its release, because of inaccuracies in the book it was based on.

It’s a good instinct by the Silicon Valley wunderkind, since the trailer for the film was recently released (you can see it below) and it portrays Zuckerberg as a conniving punk.

A genius, too, but definitely a punk.

In fact, the trailer uses that word exactly, in a scary manner, as I wrote:

“Using only portentous voices, big menacing words and doom-filled music, it gives a whole new meaning to poking.

For example, the lines, ‘The site got 2,200 hits within two hours? No, 22,000…,’ sounds like someone knew what Facebook did last summer–probably violated the privacy of the wrong hostel host––and is coming to take some body parts.”

Facebook PR honcho Elliot Schrage confirms that Facebook won’t be taking any advertising dollars from the Facebook movie.

“My understanding is that they asked us for our ad guidelines and decided not to advertise on us after receiving them,” he said. “I don’t think they ever submitted ad copy for us to review.”

Here’s the video of the trailer, so you can see why:

“We believe as users get more familiar with these tools and as we continue to educate them … the new features we’ve offered and the tools that users have to engage with them, will be embraced even more,” said Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of global communications and public policy, on a call with reporters.

The call was set up by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who couldn’t talk much during a planned press luncheon in Washington last week after losing her voice. (She also didn’t say much on the press call Wednesday, as Mr. Schrage leaped in to answer most of the questions.)

Read the rest of this post on the original site

So, BoomTown was at the Design Center Concourse in San Francisco today for Facebook’s f8 developers conference.

There is a giant logo of an 8-Ball looming over it all, which suggested a questioning mood.

Not at all!

Lots of stuff was announced, including ventures with partners like Microsoft (MSFT). That particular one is called Docs.com, an in-the-cloud effort to smack Google (GOOG).

The staff of the social networking giant showed up in overwhelming force here, stuffing the press into the giant hall’s front rows as if we were prisoners on a United Airlines (UAUA) flight.

Free us, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg!

But, wait! At events like this past, Zuckerberg’s awkward speaking style–a younger version of Microsoft’s Bill Gates–has been painful, so this was clearly an elaborate plot by COO Sheryl Sandberg to torture the media.

Well played, Sheryl (and PR mastermind Elliot Schrage)!

While we waited and were being pummeled with loud hip music like Al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I might add that it was impressive to see all the folks here–mostly dudes–paying homage to the massive growth of Facebook.

Here we go:

10:07 am PT: Zuckerberg–dressed in jeans and a hoodie and sneakers–ambled onto the stage quite casually without a lot of fuss.

BoomTown was expecting some fanfare–perhaps a brass band.

Like the geek he is at heart, Zuckerberg launched into the details right away, after a cursory nod to his company’s huge surge in size and influence.

He began talking about “social plug-in” offerings, namely a “Like” button that lets you share content from many Web sites without a lot of friction.

It is essentially Facebook’s clever plot to take over the entire Web and its conversation. I am extremely wary.

Let’s all try to remember: Facebook is Google is Facebook is Google. And so on until they both control our every breathing moment on this planet.

Like a nerd version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

But, admittedly, it was cool and innovative.

10:25 am: Zuckerberg brought out Bret Taylor, the guy from FriendFeed, which was bought by Facebook last August for $50 million.

It seems worth the dough, since Taylor is a natural presenter with the easy charm that all Zuckerberg’s money will never be able to buy.

He ran through the stuff–social plug-ins, recommendation boxes and a toolbar.

Taylor called Zuckerberg “Zuck” several times. He’s friends with Zuck!

He also is channeling Zuck with the idea that Facebook should be at the center of all things. Either a black hole or a benevolent god, depending on your point of view.

Soon, he moved onto the “Open Graph Protocol,” which he called a “valuable real-time connection” between Facebook and Web sites.

“My identity is not just defined by things on Facebook, but on things all over the Web,” added Taylor.

Things the evil geniuses of Facebook will control!

10:40 am: Taylor moved on to search, always an issue on Facebook, which still feels like it is a giant library with all the books strewn on the floor.

Yet another smack at Google! And Twitter.

He also announced that Facebook is adopting that OAuth open-source standard for authentication.

More divide and conquer.

10:45 am: Zuckerberg returned to intro Docs.com with Microsoft.

Zuckerberg then closed rather awkwardly, although somewhat endearingly, saying okay-that’s-it-you-can-go-now quite abruptly.

Realizing the oddness of the moment, he pulled it back to relate an anecdote about his girlfriend, who is studying to be a doctor.

Although Zuckerberg did not quite land it, it was all about feelings and memories.

“The essence of this is that we have a lot of early memories that, man, the world can be a lot better and we can make it that way,” said Zuckerberg.

Then he made an inexplicable reference to being in heaven and how everything is exactly how we want it there.

Let’s build it, said Zuckerberg, a very mortal–but now a very, very powerful–digital god.

Next up: Press conference with Zuck and more info about his stairway to heaven!

Until Facebook gets us there, though, here’s a video of the Led Zeppelin classic, “Stairway to Heaven,” which always reminds me of slow-dancing in a school gym and forever makes me just a little bit sad for, as Zuckerberg said, feelings and memories long gone by.

Not that Facebook or any Silicon Valley Web company is ever going to be able to retrieve even a scrap of them for real, no matter how many billions of social plug-ins and Like buttons they toss all over the Web.

Still:

It’s familiar territory for her in more than one way, since she once helped Google (GOOG) manage the same geography.

Shields has had a busy couple of years: Two years ago, she arranged the sale Bebo to AOL (AOL) for $850 million. A year after that, she took off, and ended up in a content start-up backed by Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Group.

It’s unclear what happened to that now less-than-shiny project.

Blake Chandlee, who had been running the EMEA group at Facebook, is getting moved out of that job and will now run sales in emerging markets: Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

This is the second high-profile hire–and of a former Googler–by the social networking site recently. Last week, Facebook hired top-ranking Google ad exec David Fischer as VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

With Fischer and former Googler COO Sheryl Sandberg, who has been eyeing Shields as a possible Facebook recruit since she left AOL, it seems an Ex-Googleplex is forming at Facebook’s new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif.

Some of the many former Googlers include Elliot Schrage, VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy; Grady Burnett, head of online and inside sales; Don Faul, director of global online operations; and Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network.

Both Google (GOOG) and Facebook just sent out an internal memo about the move this morning.

UPDATE: Facebook, as well as Google, just confirmed that Fischer (pictured here) is joining the company.

Said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg:

“It’s a testament to Facebook’s expanding opportunities in advertising that we’re able to welcome an executive of David’s caliber. I have worked closely with David over the years and witnessed his passion, energy, and effectiveness at building teams on a global scale. David’s arrival deepens our operational capabilities so we can build upon our ability to serve advertisers, regardless of size or location, that are building their brands on Facebook.”

Said Google in a short statement: “We thank David for his many contributions to Google and wish him the best of luck in the future.”

But the search giant cannot be happy, as the move by Fischer is yet another in a series of top execs at the search giant to defect to the fast-growing social networking site.

And it will surely raise tensions between Google and Facebook, which are increasingly becoming rivals in several major Internet arenas, and opposing poles of power in Silicon Valley.

Fischer has a strong and longtime business relationship with Sandberg.

He was Sandberg’s top deputy when she ran the core self-serve ad business at Google and took over her job when she left for Facebook two years ago. The pair also worked together at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., in the Clinton administration.

It is clear that Fischer, said sources with knowledge of the situation, is being brought in to strengthen leadership in ad ops and help scale that business.

The appointment of the experienced exec also frees Sandberg and others to focus on nonadvertising issues, such as Facebook’s inevitable journey to an IPO in 2011 or 2012.

The affable Fischer, 37, has been at Google since 2002 and rose through its ranks quickly.

Said the Google Web site about Fischer, in part:

David Fischer is responsible for Google’s online sales channel, which represents the majority of the company’s customers worldwide. David has provided leadership for the online sales and operations program since its inception in early 2002 and has helped build Google’s online advertising network into the largest in the world. He also runs the online sales channel of the AdSense publisher program, which enables website owners worldwide to earn revenue through partnerships with Google.

David manages operations for Google’s consumer products worldwide and runs Google’s Book Search scanning operations, working with libraries and publishers around the world to digitally scan books from their collections. In addition, he leads the Google Grants program, which has donated more than $300 million advertising dollars to thousands of nonprofits around the world. David has opened many offices for Google, including its sales centers in Hyderabad and Gurgaon, India as well as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Boston, Massachusetts.

But Fischer left that job last fall, taking a sabbatical.

He returned to Google in January and has been working on the company’s efforts to expand its local advertising and commerce business.

In a statement, Fischer said of his new job:

“Facebook is not just driving a shift in how people connect with one another, but in how advertisers engage and interact with their customers. I’m eager to help accelerate this shift by working with customers, scaling operations globally, and collaborating with the product and engineering teams to continue to evolve Facebook’s advertising business. Google is an incredible company and I will miss the many friends I made during my time with the company. Facebook has assembled a highly impressive collection of talent, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”

At Facebook, Fischer will not lack for former Google execs to reminisce with.

As well as Sandberg, some of the many include: Elliot Schrage, who is VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy; Grady Burnett, who heads its online and inside sales; Don Faul, director of global online operations; and Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Brad Garlinghouse’s appointment to a new job at AOL today as its new communications czar is yet another sign of an interesting trend for those keeping score of the comings and goings of top Internet execs.

Garlinghouse came to the Time Warner (TWX) online unit after a year-long break, preceded by six years at Yahoo (YHOO).

As anyone who watches the digital space knows by now, this kind of management musical chairs is common and never-ending.

In fact, borrowing a quote by IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) CEO and chairman Barry Diller from an onstage interview I did with him at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference and switching out Hollywood for Silicon Valley: “[It] is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”

But, given all the movement of late, this insider seat-switching seems more frantic than ever, as allegiances shift, competitors become friends and colleagues become rivals faster than you can tweet.

When he left Yahoo last summer, in fact, the digital chatter was that Garlinghouse would take a job either as a venture capitalist (he had been one once) or helming a start-up (that too, at Dialpad.com).

In fact, sources said, Garlinghouse had been considering two mobile gigs, but opted for helping to try to overhaul a troubled Web giant.

Fixing messes was the impetus of Owen Van Natta, who left a top job at social networking giant Facebook in early 2008 and by the end of the year, headed over to run Project Playlist, a controversial online music-sharing service.

But then he had hightailed it by spring to try his hand at reviving MySpace, as its CEO.

His boss, News Corp. (NWS) digital head Jon Miller, did the same, getting the hook (unfairly to my mind) at AOL several years ago and then creating an investment firm with former MySpace head Ross Levinsohn.

The pair considered being part of a bid to oust Yahoo management in 2008.

Miller’s freedom lasted only until he got an offer that he presumably could not refuse from News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch recently. (Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

The list goes on, chock full of ex-Yahoos, in fact.

Its one-time COO, Dan Rosensweig, left the company in 2006, for example, and joined the well-known private-equity firm, Quadrangle Group.

But, soon enough, he was scooped up by Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to run its Guitar Hero division.

Yahoo Network head Jeff Weiner also departed from the Internet giant, in mid-2008, for a stint at two VC firms.

He landed at LinkedIn, the business-networking service where he was named CEO in late June.

Greg Coleman ran Yahoo ad sales until mid-2007 before taking a job at AOL earlier this year, which he lost after it got new management soon after.

At Yahoo, Coleman sparked with former advertising sales head Wenda Harris Millard, whom he ousted. She went onto Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) and left there this spring for the Media Link consultancy.

Presto! She is now helping MySpace’s Van Natta fix the social networking site’s ad business.

Current Yahoo U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford actually came from Microsoft last summer, via her own short visit to the troubled ad start-up SpotRunner.

Former Yahoo search techie Qi Lu now runs digital for Microsoft (MSFT), along with a big gang of ex-Yahoo techies he has recruited.

And Scott Moore is even better at the switcheroo. He was at Microsoft running MSN U.S. content, switched to Yahoo as its media poobah, left last year to consider a start-up and then headed back to Microsoft as head of U.S. content this year.

But former Google (GOOG) execs have also been busy shuttling hither and yon, mostly to innovative start-ups.

Of course, many find refuge at Facebook (COO Sheryl Sandberg, PR major domo Elliot Schrage and many more) and Twitter (GC Alexander Macgillivray and COO Dick Costolo).

Recent departures–such as Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who landed at Accel Partners for now–are also likely to find new homes soon enough.

And, of course, there’s always Garlinghouse’s new boss, former Google ad head Tim Armstrong, who took over at AOL earlier this year.

We’ll skip former Joost CEO and former Cisco (CSCO) exec Mike Volpi (who is now a VC); former Netscape Communications/short-term VC/ex-banker/current-for-now CBS (CBS) digital head Quincy Smith; and Joanna Shields, who has worked at Real Networks (RNWK), Google and Bebo (which was bought by AOL)–for now.

Because, around and around and around it always goes, as you can see in this funny video below, which I posted previously:

[Musical Chair designed by Jacob Mathew.]

How much is BoomTown and everyone else in Silicon Valley trying to nab a copy of Ben Mezrich’s likely-to-be-entirely-made-up-but-who-cares tale of dirty doings at Facebook?

Muchety-much! So much so that I called all my book industry contacts–hey, I am a published author, ya know!–even though I have not actually completed reading a book since the Internet started and gave me permanent attention deficit disorder.

But, so far I have come up peanuts in grabbing an early copy of Mezrich’s tome, “The Accidental Billionaires,” which is set to come out July 14.

Facebook is not pleased, of course, and will likely be challenging Mezrich’s work as specious dreck. But the drama around the book should be interesting, to say the least.

More so, since this week also came news that actors Michael Cera and Shia LaBeouf are being considered to play founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and that David Fincher, the director of the lugubrious Brad Pitt snoozer, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” is “attached” to the movie version.

Even better: “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin will pen it and actor Kevin Spacey will produce the Columbia Pictures film, which will be called “The Social Network.”

Well, Hollywood sure came up with an original title!

It certainly does not signal the juiciness of the proposal for the book–which did manage to leak out last year–with a lot of tale tales in it that seem to have pretty much tracked on its oddly purple subtitle of “The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.”

The cover–which you can see on the book’s Facebook page (the delicious gall of Mezrich!)–features a spilled martini glass and a red bra flung nearby.

Martinis? Red bras? Sex? Facebook? Really?

Obviously, Mezrich has not actually met Zuckerberg, who is a very nice geekish young man, but who has approximately the sex appeal of a rack of Facebook servers.

Powerful yes! Spockish? Yes! Sexy? Um, no, no, no.

I will not even begin to parse the red bra thing, although I am attributing the martinis to stylish former COO (and now MySpace CEO) Owen Van Natta.

But, apparently, the sex part seems to have to do with Zuckerberg starting the company with others while an undergrad at Harvard University, as a scheme to meet some ladies.

I would say there are easier ways to attract the womenfolk–not that I could give tips or anything–but whatever!

Thus, since I cannot get my mitts on the book (yet!), here’s my list of 10 completely made-up, utterly fabricated, just-call-me-Jayson-Blair things that should be in the book.

10.) Facebook was actually going to be called OnlyPrettyLadyFacebook, but cooler heads prevailed.

9.) The Wall? A clever plot by Zuckerberg to build his online service on a fascist construct, touting his hegemony over all he surveyed.

Wait, that actually happened, and now some Russians are even investors.

Long live the Zuckrepublic of Palo Alto!

8.) Reason for stealing, oops, borrowing, oops again, completely separately developing an exact replica of ConnectU social network at Harvard:

The Olympically muscle-headed Winklevoss twins used to beat up the brainy Zuckerberg on his way back to the dorm, prompting a “Revenge of the Nerds” plot line.

7.) Facebook’s Beacon advertising? All Randi Zuckerberg’s idea, so she could find out what she was getting for her birthday from her billionaire-on-paper brother.

6.) Zuckerberg’s famous flip-flops were made in China under dubious working conditions. Wait, that’s true too.

5.) The 20-something Zuckerberg is actually 93 years old, a real-life version of Benjamin Button, which would explain the social awkwardness and staring-into-space-sometimes thing.

4.) The no-breast-feeding-pictures controversy pretty much proves no one is interested in bras or, more precisely, what goes in them at Facebook.

3.) COO Sheryl Sandberg is a cyborg sent to Facebook from Google for purposes of infiltration. She and her crafty sidekick, Elliott Schrage, will become self-aware in 2012 and hunt down Zuckerberg in a thrilling chase that will also become a movie.

2.) The sex, drugs and rock-and-roll stuff actually all took place at MySpace, which really pisses off certifiably dashing co-Founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson because, once again, Zuckerberg stole their mojo!

1.) This work of fiction, oops, “fact”-ion, oops again, nonfiction, is probably not going to sell many copies because it will mysteriously be uploaded in its entirety by a widget that will distribute it free to Facebook’s 200 million plus users while simultaneously SuperDuperPoking Mezrich, by throwing real sheep at him.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Ben.

(By the way, here is an extra for you: The $15 billion valuation for Facebook, along with all the other Web 2.0 ones? Totally true. Just ask any VC.)

And, in case anyone was wondering what the real Facebook looks like, here is a recent video tour I did of its new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif.:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090624/boomtowns-top-10-list-of-fact-challenged-revelations-that-should-be-in-the-facebook-tell-all-book/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14531

Last week, in anticipation of Facebook’s Press Open House tonight for its spanking new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., BoomTown hightailed it down there for an early look-see at just what the social-networking site is doing with all that dough it collected from Microsoft (MSFT) and the Russians.

Moving into a new crib, for one thing!

Thus, I got a an extra-special tour of the 150,000-square-foot new building, which brings more than 900 employees together at last, by Facebook’s long-suffering–mostly due to my being annoying, I know!–PR honcho, Brandee Barker.

Previously, the fast-growing Facebook staff had been spread willy-nilly throughout the downtown of Palo Alto, where they irked pretty much everyone by stealing all the good parking.

So, much like the tour I did recently with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone of its San Francisco HQ, here is a video of Facebook’s new digs in the heart of Silicon Valley.

It includes the whole place, which used to be a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) facility, from the front door to the cafeteria to the evil lair of VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy, Elliot Schrage.

While he did not deign to be on camera (although he did shellac me in a quick game of ping-pong, in spite of my smack talk), I did get to chat with folks like marketing exec Randi Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Also, Barker tries mightily to show that she can ride a Rip Stick, which is apparently Facebook’s version of bikes at Google (GOOG).

At the very least, she gets an A for effort.

Here’s the video of my tour:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090615/kara-tours-the-new-facebook-hq-and-gets-ripped-the-uncut-video/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090402/the-entire-facebook-goodbye-gideon-we-are-the-money-champions-memo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090402/the-entire-facebook-goodbye-gideon-we-are-the-money-champions-memo/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:02:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=11645

Dear Elliot Schrage:

BoomTown wins.

As Sheryl knows from experience, don’t mess with the Swish. Or Texas. Or Zohan.

Just don’t mess.

For everyone else, here is the entire memo that Facebook sent out this week from CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to its 800-person staff about the departure of CFO Gideon Yu and the financial status of the Silicon Valley social-networking start-up, which some had been questioning.

According to the memo, there is a company Q&A tomorrow about it all too! What should I wear?

UPDATE:In a version of the memo I first posted, there was a repeated paragraph, with slight differences. This might have been a software error–several versions I got of this entire memo had different punctuation in various places.

In any case, I eliminated the extra repeated graph and I changed one part below of “we are” to “Facebook is” in brackets.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL–DO NOT FORWARD

Hey Everyone–

Today ends the first quarter of 2009, so I wanted to send out an update on our growth and financial progress, as well as a couple of changes we are making.

Our user growth has been extraordinary over the past year and has continued to be strong throughout Q1. We are getting very close to reaching our 200 millionth active user. This is pretty remarkable considering we just reached 100 million actives a little more than seven months ago. We have become the top site for sharing information on the web, and this gives us a good strategic position to help people share even more.

I am also pleased that our financial progress has been very strong as well. While we came into this year wondering how the recession might affect us, our financial performance in the first quarter surpassed our expectations. As other businesses around us are slowing down and cutting back, we continue to grow around the world. Our advertising products are becoming more attractive for advertisers and we have seen strong growth in both our domestic and international direct sales and online sales channels.

Even in the current economic environment, we are confident that this success will continue. Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year. That’s an important measure of financial success and sustainability because it means we’d be able to fund all of our operations and server purchases from the cash we generate while increasing our cash reserves in the bank. Hitting these numbers will require continued hard work, discipline and execution by everyone here at Facebook, but we are on the path to achieve these goals.

As we ramp up to take on these challenges, I want to let you know that Gideon Yu will be leaving the company. Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team and establishing the core financial operations of our company. I will always be grateful to Gideon for his contributions to Facebook and what we are trying to accomplish. As those of you who know him know, Gideon’s family is his highest priority and it’s certainly not the usual cliché to say that he plans to take some time off to be with his wife and son. Gideon and I have often discussed that the next stage of his career will likely be as an investor, and I fully support him in this regard.

We have retained Spencer Stuart to search for a new CFO and we will be looking for someone with public company experience who can help take us to the next stage in our growth.

In the interim, the finance team will report to Cipora Herman in her capacity as Treasurer and Ted Ullyot as mteam lead. In addition, [Facebook is] fortunate that Peter Currie, the former CFO for Netscape, has agreed to serve as the advisor to Facebook until a new CFO comes on board.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me or to others on mteam if you have any questions about our finance plans or organization. I’ll discuss this more at the Q&A on Friday and I will be happy to take questions then too.

Congratulations to everyone on a great start to the year and on all the momentum you have all helped build for the rest of 2009.

Mark

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090402/the-entire-facebook-goodbye-gideon-we-are-the-money-champions-memo/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20090226/liveblogging-the-facebook-our-tos-is-your-tos-press-conference/ http://allthingsd.com/20090226/liveblogging-the-facebook-our-tos-is-your-tos-press-conference/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:14:56 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=10418

BoomTown is impatiently cooling heels, waiting for a press conference to begin about “new steps Facebook is taking to improve user understanding and ownership of the Facebook terms of service and, more generally, the policies of the Facebook service.”

The Yahoo (YHOO) reorg finally announced this morning is positively thrilling in comparison!

But we’re liveblogging it anyway!

Here’s what I got in the morning mail:

Hi Kara–

You are invited to participate in a press conference call with Mark Zuckerberg today at 11am PT where he will announce the new steps Facebook is taking to improve user understanding and ownership of the Facebook terms of service and, more generally, the policies of the Facebook service.

For more and future updates we encourage you to join the Facebook Group called the Official Group for Media & Analysts Following Facebook.

Also this:

Subject: Facebook Opens Governance of Service and Policy Process to Users

Today we’re announcing new opportunities for users to play a meaningful role in determining the policies governing our site. We released the first proposals subject to these procedures–The Facebook Principles, a set of values that will guide the development of the service, and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that governs Facebook’s operations. Users will have the opportunity to review, comment and vote on these documents over the coming weeks and, if they are approved, other future policy changes. We’ve posted the documents in separate groups and have invited users to offer comments and suggestions. You can find these groups here:

Facebook Principles

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54964476066

Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67758697570

For more information and the full press release, please check out the recent news section of this group.

As always, you can feel free to email us with any questions at press@facebook.com

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

11:11 am:

Facebook PR honcho Elliot Schrage opens up the conference, but I am honestly only hear: “Blah, blah, blah.”

Then, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg comes on.

“Openness and transparency is not just an end state,” he said. “It’s also a process.”

Say what, Willis?

Soon Zuckerberg is explaining how he wants to craft Facebook’s rules of the road going forward. It’s like being at the Constitutional Convention, except for geeks.

Alert! Comment! Notify! Transparency! Oversharing!

11:17 am:

“We want to be as clear as possible that we do not own user data,” said Zuckerberg. “We feel really bad about that.”

Us too!

11:21 am:

I get to ask the first question, which is about how this whole mess happened.

Zuckerberg said Facebook had made previous changes all the time to its Terms of Service to complex legal documents. This time, in trying to make them simpler, “we made a few mistakes,” which in turn set off a firestorm.

Ah, the mistakes-were-made defense!

“A lot of the feedback was fair,” acknowledged Zuckerberg, who then talked about the new notification and feedback and comments options, so it will not happen ever again. Except next month.

Also, there will be a vote. Well, only on some issues that get people all hot and bothered, presumably. But who decides what gets voted on and who wins the vote?

Unclear. But vote early and often.

But, said Schrage: “We underestimated the sense of ownership” that Facebook users have for the service.

11:25 am:

A question about whether or not Facebook should have known better after its Beacon advertising debacle.

Not the same thing, said Zuckerberg. But point taken!

11:27 am:

More legal stuff. Zzzzzz.

Then a question on phishing scams. Off topic! Schrage cuts it off tout de suite. Sorry, fella, but this is about one screw-up at a time.

Another shouldn’t-you-have-known-better related question, referring back to the News Feed debacle of 2007. That was before the Beacon debacle of 2008. Which was before the ToS debacle of 2009. (Is anyone noticing a pattern here?)

In other words, Facebook should have known better.

Radical transparency, said Zuckerberg: “This is all about us trusting our users.”

He might start that ball rolling by not sneaking up on us all the time.

11:33 am:

More about rules of the road. More about the transparent community.

Zuckerberg is now fully channelling Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Call ends.

Boo!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090226/liveblogging-the-facebook-our-tos-is-your-tos-press-conference/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20081001/ullyot/ http://allthingsd.com/20081001/ullyot/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:52:38 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=6024 “Ted has extremely strong connections with the Republican party, and we think that’s a good thing.” That’s what Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy, had to say about Ted Ullyot, who joins the company as its vice president and general counsel this month. A former chief of staff to former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Ullyot handled the government’s response to the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. He’s the latest high-profile addition to the company’s management team–which now includes a handful of Google (GOOG) veterans, one of whom once served as chief of staff at the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration. Ullyot “has an extraordinary combination of private legal practice and public sector experience,” Schrage told the Los Angeles Times. “So many of the legal issues we face touch on both of those arenas. He is equally comfortable helping us expand internationally as he is in helping us navigate complicated legal issues we may face in Washington. Ted’s arrival really demonstrates we’re a little more grown up.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081001/ullyot/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080818/the-curious-case-of-facebooks-benjamin-ling-and-sheryl-sandberg/ http://allthingsd.com/20080818/the-curious-case-of-facebooks-benjamin-ling-and-sheryl-sandberg/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:15:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2834

Here’s one certainty in the hubbub that has resulted in the wake of the departure of high-profile exec Ben Ling from Facebook last week: COO Sheryl Sandberg is definitely not responsible for the melting of the polar ice caps.

That’s the joking question–”Was global warming Sandberg’s fault too?”–asked at a staff meeting at the social-networking start-up last Friday afternoon after the news of Ling’s departure on the heels of previous employee exits suddenly morphed into a series of increasingly vituperative posts on the Valleywag tech gossip site centering on what blogger Owen Thomas called Sandberg’s “reign of terror” at Facebook.

Using Photoshopped images–one of Sandberg wielding a rifle and another with the bright-red word, “LIAR,” plastered under her mug–the vaguely sexist and decidedly over-the-top picture painted was of Sandberg (at right) as some unholy cross of Lady Macbeth, the bad side of Hillary Clinton and a really grumpy fascist dictator of a small third-world country.

“She demands total loyalty, and brooks no dissent–even the healthy, boisterous debate that’s common to start-ups,” wrote Thomas dramatically, as if Sandberg might really use that fake rifle on errant minions. “You’re either with Sheryl, or you’re against Sheryl. And if you’re against Sheryl, you’re not long for Facebook.”

Owen, you have now officially scared the bejesus out of BoomTown with that added dash of Rosa Klebb!

(And, of course, this image conveniently leaves out the very pertinent fact that Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still firmly and much more militantly in charge at Facebook than ever before, but we will get to that later.)

In any case, Valleywag used all of this to postulate that Sandberg’s insane reaction to Ling’s leaving–complete with a sneaky-sounding stock bribe to buy his silence–was evidence of her mad grab for power over all of Facebook.

The talented and strong-willed Ling was portrayed in an odd way too, as some sort of whiny victim of circumstances he was unable to control.

Except–while BoomTown likes a good “Tom and Jerry” cartoon as much as the next person–it’s a deeply inaccurate portrayal of Sandberg, who arrived at Facebook in March; of what happened with regard to Ling; and most of all, of the often-painful growing-up process that has actually been occurring inside of Facebook.

The Ling incident is, in fact, a perfect example of this.

According to multiple sources from all sides, Ling (pictured here) was offered the choice of resigning or being terminated last Monday, and he and Facebook senior management wrangled over how he would leave the company and announce his return to Google (GOOG)–in a big job at its YouTube division, in fact. But the true story of his departure is highly typical of how small, promising Web companies stumble forward.

From mismanaging expectations related to Ling’s job after his arrival from Google last fall (after Facebook widely touted the new recruit), to constant shifts in how the company was organized, to a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings on both sides, the curious case of Benjamin Ling and Sheryl Sandberg is–more than anything–completely human.

Which is to say, it is a bit of a mess.

Here’s what I found out, after spending the weekend talking to as many people with knowledge of the situation as possible, in a very long report:

To begin, as someone who has been consistently tough on the company for its insane valuation, criticized its sometimes ham-handed management and pressed it to show the true path to sustainable monetization, I think I cannot be considered a cheerleader for Facebook or for its shifting management.

Thus, I and many others looked closely at the recent departures of CTO Adam D’Angelo (to take time off) in May and longtime exec Matt Cohler in June (to become a VC at Benchmark Capital) with a gimlet eye.

Looking further, I learned from several sources that the 20-something D’Angelo had issues with the company inevitably becoming larger and more bureaucratic, and there were also questions about his ability to run the much larger and increasingly complicated technical organization.

The sudden exit of Cohler (pictured here), who had become Facebook’s VP of Product Management, had an even a more complex set of variables, sources said, including his longtime interest in being a VC, the highly attractive offer he got from Benchmark and, most of all, his lack of interest in running a much larger organization.

While some say Cohler–who was, in fact, key to bringing Sandberg in–quickly grew disillusioned with her and the direction of Facebook, it seems a bit of a stretch to me to say he left because of her.

As Zuckerberg’s earliest and most trusted of execs, who is also well-liked by all, Cohler had as much–if not more–power as Sandberg over the organization. More likely, I imagine Cohler would have stayed if he thought she was laying waste to the place.

In any case, the arrival of Sandberg–followed quickly by the hiring of former Google PR head Elliot Schrage–heralded massive changes and an eventual path to an IPO for Facebook, a journey that not everyone welcomed, to be sure.

With their much more disciplined and controlling management styles, highly polished Harvard, Washington, D.C. and Google resumes, and obviously sharper edges, Sandberg and Schrage (pictured here) represented a contrast to earlier, less-intense times that not everyone at Facebook has liked.

Many execs–used to the chaos of jostling for attention and power from the close-to-the-vest Zuckerberg, whose attention to various employees seems to always wax and wane–also resisted a No. 2 in charge.

Typical was discontent from Technical Operations VP Jonathan Heiliger, whom many sources pointed to because of his vocal complaints around the company and around Silicon Valley about Sandberg’s more brusque and meddlesome style.

(Heiliger now gets along better with Sandberg, according to many, as do many execs previously wary of the new regime.)

Interestingly, Ling was not in this disgruntled camp, having known Sandberg from Google and hoped her arrival would clarify his growing disappointment with the job he thought he had been hired for.

According to many sources, Ling thought his job as director of platform product marketing, as described to him by Zuckerberg and others who recruited him in the fall of 2007, would be much more expansive than it turned out to be.

And, indeed, the letter from his new boss, Chamath Palihapitiya, heralding his arrival seemed to indicate that Ling would have a lot of responsibility:

Hi Guys,

Please join me in welcoming Ben to Facebook as our Director of Platform Product Marketing, working on my team. He joins us from Google where he was the General Manager of eCommerce, where he ran Google Product Search and Google Checkout and was the founder of Google Checkout. Ben also led the mobile efforts at Google in 2004, where he launched Google SMS. Prior to Google, Ben received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Ben is responsible for overseeing Platform aspects of Product Management, Product Marketing, Technical Support, and Partner Solutions.

Zuck, D’Angelo and I are psyched to have Ben on board. *BLING*, as he is known to his friends, sits on the 2nd floor of 156 if you want to come by and introduce yourself.

Chamath”

It was a wide swath of duties, which seemed to indicate that Ling was, in essence, the lead manager of the platform.

This turned out not to be the case, as Facebook runs more as a “functional” organization rather than a “cross-functional” one, which is to say, no one manager is in charge of all the many parts it takes to get a product out the door.

For someone like Ling, sources said, the lack of structure meant chaos and no clear lines of accountability, and he pressed his bosses for more definition of his role.

For their part, sources said, those execs–Palihapitiya (pictured here) and then Cohler–felt Ling was too interested in internal politics, his title and control rather than in taking the lead in a more organic way. They also felt Ling, while a good executor of tasks, lacked the vision to be the overall manager of the platform.

Whether they ever did anything about it, of course, remains unclear, except for the fact that this kind of thing happens a lot all over Silicon Valley.

Let me just stop here then, because one can go round and round with this kind of wrangling over job performance issues and never be able to determine who exactly is to blame.

But it is safe to say Ling was not happy with Facebook and Facebook was not happy with Ling.

When Schrage was put in charge of platform marketing (and not in charge of the platform itself, as many have misconstrued, since he is decidedly nontechnical), the controversial move caused more problems and threw Ling’s status into even more confusion.

Ling and many others did not like the move, of course, but Ling did go to Schrage to share his disappointment and then took his gripes to Sandberg.

That, from what I can tell, is where things went most awry.

In that meeting about 10 days ago, Ling told her that Google had been tring to recruit him and that he was unhappy with the structure of the Facebook organization. According to those who back Ling, he was not making a threat, but seeking advice.

That is not the way those at Facebook see it. “Ben wanted a bigger job, and he was using the prospect of going to Google as a hammer,” said one person. “But he was not doing a good enough job with what he had been running to make such demands.”

Sandberg said she would discuss it with other senior execs, most especially Zuckerberg, and get back to Ling with some answers on Monday.

That was when discontent with Ling bubbled up among his managers, and suddenly a series of smaller slights and problems with Ling added up, and not in his favor.

Curiously, although Facebook sources claim they were dissatisfied with Ling’s work, there seems to have been exactly zero effort to remove him before he revealed the Google offer.

Nonetheless, all now agreed that Ling should not have the larger job, especially if he was also considering a job at rival Google–although, once again, it is not clear that he actually asked for a larger role within Facebook.

What has been lost in this story, though, is that the final decision came from Zuckerberg (pictured here), who was irked by Ling’s demands and his perceived disloyalty.

Sandberg and Schrage came back to Ling on Monday of last week with a startling decision: He could either resign immediately and write an email to his staff announcing it or he would be terminated by them that night and they would announce it.

Ling was, many sources said, flabbergasted that what he thought was an attempt to get some clarity had turned into this. His detractors maintained he was threatening Facebook by dangling the Google offer.

Ling wrote his letter to staff, and news of his departure leaked by the next day, both to me and VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon.

In my post, Ling did not say he resigned under pressure, nor did Facebook say it was about to fire him if he did not resign.

“I have huge respect for Elliot and work well with him,” Ling told me. “Facebook is a tremendous organization, and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity.”

Facebook’s statement said, in part: “Facebook confirms that Ben Ling will be leaving the company in the coming weeks to pursue other interests. We wish him well and appreciate his great contributions to the early success of Facebook Platform.”

No surprise, but things got worse when the discussions quickly turned to the terms of his departure. Ling was only a few months away from his “cliff” for vesting one-quarter of the equity he got for coming to Facebook.

Facebook offered to either accelerate that completely or even make an offer of some of those shares, but only if Ling stayed on the Facebook payroll–taking a two-month vacation–and did not accept an offer from Google or anyone else in that time period.

In addition, deeply sensitive to the perception of a high-profile Google hire going back to the mother ship, Facebook wanted the deal to include a provision barring an immediate announcement that Ling would return to the search giant.

Obviously, given that the original story had been all about talent leaving Google to come to Facebook, the opposite was a much less palatable plot.

Still, this kind of request to refrain from going right to work for a competitor in exchange for shares is not untypical, and companies almost always ask for strict nondisparagement clauses.

But in the hothouse blogging environment of today, of course, to ask for help stopping such news from leaking is like asking to hold back the ocean waves. External optics on Ling’s departure clearly became too much of a focus of Sandberg, Schrage and others.

More to the point, although he did consider delaying acceptance of the job at Google, even though there were other contenders for the position, Ling did not want to agree to Facebook’s messaging about his departure.

Said one Ling supporter: “How could he guarantee that someone was not going to find out and then he would have had to tell a lie about his plans? Especially, given that Facebook is the leakiest place in the Valley?”

Good point and thank goodness! Valleywag wrote about Ling lunching at Google and I wrote of the details of Ling’s new YouTube job on Friday.

Facebook sources, though, said Ling threatened to badmouth the company if they did not pony up. “He insinuated he was going to talk badly about all of us, and we did not want to deal with him acting like that,” said one source.

Sources supportive of Ling said this was not the case and that he was not ever going to impugn Facebook, although Ling was, of course, unhappy.

“Why they didn’t give him some credit for his work and align his interests with theirs by being more generous is a mystery to all of us,” said one Facebook exec, who noted that Ling was prominently featured onstage in the most recent rollout of platform changes at Facebook. “His fall from grace makes you think anyone could go from valued employee to bum pretty quickly.”

Other sources at Facebook disagree, noting Ling was simply a hire who did not pan out as expected and that the fault was in not dealing with the issue sooner.

They also note that the company would never have agreed to put Ling prominently onstage if they had known he was considering a move to Google.

But once again, if Facebook was unhappy with Ling’s work, why put him onstage at all?

It’s hard to get a good answer to that question, which–to me–underscores the disorganization around Ling’s leaving.

“Ben is a really smart guy and Google is probably a better place for him,” said one Facebook exec. “He will probably do well, but he did not do well here.”

Actually, neither Facebook nor Ling did very well in dealing with the disintegration of the relationship.

Ling got a new job at YouTube and a fat signing bonus, but no Facebook shares, some of which he probably deserved for his work on the platform.

And Facebook learned yet another hard lesson about growing up. It is doubtless going to be one of many, many to come.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080818/the-curious-case-of-facebooks-benjamin-ling-and-sheryl-sandberg/feed/ 9 http://allthingsd.com/20080814/ben-ling-lands-back-at-google-this-time-at-youtube/ http://allthingsd.com/20080814/ben-ling-lands-back-at-google-this-time-at-youtube/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:06:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2779 Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Ben Ling–the high-profile Facebook platform exec who came from Google less than a year ago and then up and left the social-networking site earlier this week–is about to head back to Google, this time taking a job leading monetization efforts at YouTube, according to several sources.

On Tuesday, BoomTown reported that Ling (pictured here) was leaving his job at Facebook, where he has been director of platform product marketing.

At the time, Ling would not be specific as to his reasons for leaving, saying in an interview: “Facebook is a tremendous organization, and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity.”

And that opportunity apparently entails returning to his previous employer, where Ling once worked on Google’s Checkout product and other e-commerce platform efforts.

Ling’s is a move that will surely spur many to rev up the Facebook-versus-Google (GOOG) stories, given that several top Google execs–such as COO Sheryl Sandberg and PR and Platform head Elliot Schrage, as well many others–have been recruited by Facebook over the last year.

Apparently, the Empire does strike back.

Interestingly, Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed the YouTube monetization issue in an appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money with Jim Kramer” yesterday.

Here’s a transcript of the section where they discussed YouTube:

CRAMER: LET’S SPEAK ABOUT A QUESTION THAT, AGAIN, I’M TRYING ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS HOLDING THE STOCK DOWN. YOU HAVE TREMENDOUS DOWNLOADS IN YOUTUBE ARE EXTRAORDINARY.

SCHMIDT: IT’S UP TO 1.3 MILLION MINUTES EVERY TEN MINUTES OF UPLOAD? IN OTHER WORDS EVERY MINUTE WE ARE PUTTING THAT MANY VIDEOS IN. IT’S UNBELIEVABLE.

CRAMER: BUT AT THE SAME TIME, WHAT ADVERTISER WANTS TO PUT A 30-SECOND ADVERTISEMENT IN YOUTUBE, WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT THAT VERSUS THE ADVERTISEMENTS WE ARE DOING FOR THE OLYMPICS WHICH ARE JUST GIGANTIC 1.7 BILLION IN REVENUE. ISN’T IT TRUE THAT PEOPLE DON’T LIKE ADS ON YOUTUBE?

SCHMIDT: WE HAVE NOT FIGURED THAT MODEL OUT YET. YOU’RE COMPARING A 50-YEAR-OLD MATURE MODEL THAT WORKS REALLY WELL ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS IN THE OLYMPICS, VERSUS SOMETHING THAT’S JUST STARTING. WE HAVE LOTS OF TRAFFIC.

CRAMER: SO YOU ARE JUST SAYING SOMEONE WILL JUST FIGURE IT OUT.

SCHMIDT: HOPING IT’S GOING TO BE US THAT FIGURES IT OUT. WE’RE TRYING DIFFERENT THINGS WE TRIED PRE-ROLL AND POST-ROLL NOT ANYONE ONE IS REALLY, WE HAVE A COUPLE NEW ONES COMING OUT.

CRAMER: YOU’RE MAKING SO MUCH MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT. IT ISN’T LIKE IT IS GOING TO HIT YOUR BOTTOM LINE.

SCHMIDT: IT DOESN’T HIT OUR BOTTOM LINE.

CRAMER: SOME ARE SAYING IT WILL.

SCHMIDT: BUT EVENTUALLY WE’D LIKE TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF IT, BUT IF WE DON’T, THE FACT THAT SO MANY PEOPLE COME TO YOUTUBE MEANS THEY ULTIMATELY GOOGLE AND DO GOOGLE SEARCHES AND CLICK ON ADS. SO DON’T BE TOO WORRIED ABOUT ALL THAT TRAFFIC GOING TO YOUTUBE. I’D BE WORRIED IF PEOPLE WEREN’T USING YOUTUBE. SINCE IT IS AN ENORMOUS SUCCESS GLOBALLY WE KNOW WE WILL BENEFIT.

Valleywag ran an item earlier today speculating that Ling might be on his way back to the mother ship, noting he was spotted having lunch there recently.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080814/ben-ling-lands-back-at-google-this-time-at-youtube/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20080812/ben-ling-to-leave-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20080812/ben-ling-to-leave-facebook/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:53:29 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2687

Earlier this afternoon, sources told BoomTown that Ben Ling (pictured here) was leaving his job at Facebook, a high-profile departure given that the social-networking company grabbed the well-known techie from Google (GOOG).

Ling and Facebook have since confirmed the departure to me.

At Facebook, Ling has been director of platform product marketing. He told his staff today of his plans to leave the company.

While some sources speculated that Ling was perhaps unhappy with the installation of uber-PR guru (and also ex-Googler) Elliot Schrage over Ling and others in the key platform arena recently, Ling was adamant that this was not the case.

Ling, in an interview today by phone, said: “I have huge respect for Elliot and work well with him.”

Ling would not be specific as to his reasons for leaving the hot social network, but he said he was pursuing “another opportunity.”

Mysterious!

He added that “Facebook is a tremendous organization, and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity.”

Facebook has seen the departure of several key executives over the last few months, for a variety of reasons. Those who have gone include: VP of Product Management Matt Cohler, who is leaving soon to become a venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital, and former CTO Adam D’Angelo, who left in May to take time off.

Here is Facebook’s official statement on the Ling departure:

“Facebook confirms that Ben Ling will be leaving the company in the coming weeks to pursue other interests. We wish him well and appreciate his great contributions to the early success of Facebook Platform. Platform is poised for continued growth and success, and the company is on track to deliver the range of major initiatives announced last month at f8, including Facebook Connect, fbFund and the Great Apps and Application Verification programs. Each of these programs have a strong team of professionals focused on attracting the best developers to Facebook Platform, helping developers succeed on Platform, and helping users find and enjoy great applications on Facebook.”

The most excellent Eric Eldon of VentureBeat was also on the Ling-leaving trail and did a post that includes a lot of great reporting on Facebook’s platform too.

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