All Things Digital

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social-networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

But here is the entire segment for your viewing enjoyment:

Here are two clips of the much longer interview I did with Lesley Stahl of CBS’ “60 Minutes” for their piece on Facebook, which did not appear on the program last night. They are a bit tougher on the company, although I think they are also quite fair (paging Brandee Barker: That’s right, fair!).

In the first, Stahl noted at the start that I am known as “that nasty woman” at Facebook and called “mean” by some there, because I have had a few tough questions in my BoomTown posts for the social-networking start-up’s business underpinnings.

If that’s the reason, especially since I am also clearly praising the service itself in this clip, I guess I consider the monikers to be compliments.

(One caveat–in this clip, I say Facebook has “no revenues,” but this is not true obviously as I and many others have reported. I believe just previous to this part of the interview, I was asked a lot about the particulars of the revenues, which I have written need to be much less dependent on guaranteed proceeds from Facebook’s relationship with Microsoft. But that part of the interview is not here, which gives the wrong impression that I am declaring that Facebook has no revenues. It does and they are growing strongly, but my point here was that revenues are still not in sync with Facebook’s oversized valuation.)

In this second clip below, Stahl asks me about the “Toddler CEO” title I foisted on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a while back. Let me say, at the time I meant it as a joke and not as a judgment (and I know my toddlers, given I have had two actual ones).

Still, it probably was unfair and even ageist (in the nontypical direction) to call a 23-year-old Zuckerberg a toddler. But, as I note here, Facebook probably at least has to consider a more experienced CEO in the planning for an eventual IPO.

CBS’s “60 Minutes” will air its Facebook piece on Sunday, and BoomTown is curious to see what take the iconic new magazine show will have on the hot and hyped social network and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

In clips it has released, Zuckerberg tells veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl that its stalkerish ad product Beacon–a half-baked ad scheme Facebook cooked up that sends information about your purchases on partner Web sites back to your profile on the service–needs work.

Really? I had no idea! Oh, wait, I did.

Zuckerberg goes on to assure Stahl and the viewing public that Beacon will be a good tool someday. “It might take some work for us to get this exactly right,” said Zuckerberg in the interview. “This is something we think is going to be a really good thing.”

Since the 23-year-old is no Martha Stewart, we would like to take his word for it, but will not for now.

Zuckerberg also tells Stahl not to expect an IPO in 2008–well, I was not expecting one, but thanks for the confirmation–meaning that Facebook would have to make do with the $300 million it recently got from Microsoft and Chinese rich man Li Ka-shing for small stakes in the company.

The investments, as faithful BoomTown readers know, gave Facebook an insane $15 billion valuation. Despite the start-up’s fast growth and impressive record of building a pretty good service, I hope Stahl gives that wacky number her patented dubious eyebrow raise she always throws at various and sundry midrange dictators talking democracy.

We’re also interested in seeing the piece for you’re-so-vain reasons, because I was also interviewed by Stahl for the segment.

No surprise, Stahl asked if I was biased because of my partner, the Google exec (see my voluminous disclosure about that and more here), and because Rupert Murdoch now owned both Facebook rival MySpace and Dow Jones (owner of this site).

Well, no to both, since I was slapping around Facebook long before Google declared Open Social war on it and also before News Corp. was our corporate pooh-bah (also, the idea of me doing Rupe’s social-networking dirty work is laughable).

But most of the interview was about the many challenging issues I and others have raised about Facebook. In her lean-forward style, Stahl asked me a range of questions, mostly having to do with my many pieces on the start-up and Zuckerberg.

An old pro at the shake-up game, she noted at the start that some had called me “nasty” and “mean” for my sharpish reporting on Facebook.

I confess! I confess! It’s all true!

That is, if by mean, Stahl meant my thinking the valuation was undeserved thus far, raising questions about the need for a magic business plan to support that valuation and, of course, my wondering if Zuckerberg was experienced enough to be Facebook’s CEO.

Then, of course you can call me Cruella De Poke.

How I wish CBS–paging Quincy Smith!–would allow embedding of its videos, but here is a link to one clip from the interview where Zuckerberg talks about Beacon. And here is another about Zuckerberg’s wacky days as a hacker at Harvard.

The show airs at 7 p.m.

5. Because his World Wide Pants production company took only two weeks to bang out a separate agreement with writers to go back to work at his “Late Show” on CBS from their strike after saying they would try to make a deal.

4. Because he will get the best guests now, because actors would rather forgo Botox than walk across picket lines over at places like NBC’s “Tonight Show” and “Late Night” to flack their latest movie, TV show or whatever.

3. Because his show will be funnier than competitors, who are also resuming production with their writers still on strike, because writers are funny and nonwriters are, um, not.

2. Because this might prove to be a small return to sensibility between the two sides in the fight–writers and studios–both of whom are not negotiating at all as much as conducting what is now a pretty senseless PR fight in which everyone is a loser and no one will win.

1. Because he named his production company World Wide Pants.

Here are some more video interviews I did at the Monaco Media Forum last week.

Talking about a range of Web issues, the interviewees include pundit and investor Esther Dyson, Real Networks’ Rob Glaser, Simon Assaad of Heavy, BSkyB’s James Murdoch and the ubiquitous Quincy Smith of CBS:

OK, I am definitely not Princess Grace-worthy (well, who is? But here’s a picture of her, because it just makes life more pleasant).

But I am headed right now to her glam neck of the woods for the Monaco Media Forum, which is set to take place from tomorrow through Saturday in Monte-Carlo.

Hosted by HSH Prince Albert II, its subhead this year is “Leadership for the Digital Revolution,” and the group gathered is pretty heady and packed with American Webheads, as well as from around the globe. It has all been wrangled by Wired’s Spencer Reiss.

Speakers include Google’s ad guy Tim Armstrong, RealNetworks’ CEO Rob Glaser, CBS interactive guru Quincy Smith, pundit Esther Dyson, Babelgum Chairman Silvio Scaglia, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, NetVibes CEO Tariq Krim and News Corp.’s British Sky Broadcasting CEO James Murdoch (whose father is BoomTown’s new bossman).

I will be doing a one-on-one interview Friday morning with InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller with the title “Reality Check.”

Videos to come, of course, as BoomTown gets some European class.

Joost, the online video service, is finally out of beta–kind of–with the release of its 1.0 software to anyone who cares to download it and a redesign of both its Web page and search on the service.

The broadband peer-to-peer Internet service, which is trying to popularize a television experience on the Web by providing professionally produced content–complete with network television shows–will remain in beta, although you no longer have to be invited to join.

Presumably, kazillions will now sign up. Or not!

Those who were invited and already using it now get a better interface and a way to find shows that seems more intuitive (the old carousel approach was plainly confusing, so let’s just forget it ever happened).

It will also open its API for third-party apps–in other words, widgetmania continues unabated!

We are no Walt Mossberg, but found the pre-beta version a bit buggy and often annoying, so this is an improvement. Now, bring us more programming we like (and, um, not more of investor CBS’s gross-me-out “CSI”)!

Joost, founded by the founders of the Skype online phone service, is backed by some big players–such as Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures–to the tune of $45 million in funding.

And it also nabbed a popular Silicon Valley player, Mike Volpi, as its CEO.

Here’s a video interview with Volpi, in two parts (Part 1 and Part 2), which I did on a recent trip to Los Angeles, where he was visiting in the vain hope that Hollywood types might suddenly realize the kids love this crazy Internet thing.

Also included is a video I made at Joost’s party in Burbank in June for those same ungrateful entertainment folks.

I like Mike. Volpi, that is, Joost’s new CEO.

Pictured here, the 40-year-old longtime tech exec is a nice choice to run the moderately hyped online video television site.

But I will admit it–I have not been gung-ho on the prospect of Joost–which I have called a potentially “messy control freak of a service.”

I was teasing, of course, but do have doubts about the company–founded by the well-known geek duo Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström–as being too closed and destination oriented, as well as playing in a very crowded field.

In addition, Joost needs massive amounts of cooperation from the very restrictive mandarins of Hollywood. And we all know the amount of leadership they have brought as all content has gone digital–some sum much less than zero.

By the way, Friis and Zennström are the pair who disrupted the phone industry with Skype and also created the controversial peer-to-peer file-sharing service Kazaa, used by many to illegally download–yes–copyrighted entertainment content.

But now in the age of fear and loathing in Hollywood for Google-owned YouTube comes Joost, which aims to deliver a TV experience on the Web with high-quality professional content by using a special player you download. It is free, supported by advertising.

To do this, Joost nabbed $45 million in funding in May from Silicon Valley’s famed Sequoia Capital (backers of Yahoo, YouTube and Google, among others) and early Skype funder Index Ventures, as well as CBS, Viacom and the wealthy Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing.

It has struck deals to offer content, using a peer-to-peer technology distribution system, from CBS, as well as Turner and Warner Bros. and Sony. It has also picked up a slate of big-time advertisers like Coca-Cola. Also, unlike television, it also gives users a bunch of interactive options like instant messaging while viewing and news feeds.

So far, Hollywood likes Joost because, hmm, it’s not copyright-defying YouTube.

But the start-up is not alone. For example, NBC Universal and News Corp. will soon launch a new Web video service called Hulu, in a reported $100 million effort. Also, there’s Veoh, backed by former Hollywood bigwigs Michael Eisner and, recently, Tom Freston.

(At least Joost has this going for it–not such a dopey name as those two! In fact, I like the name a lot.)

And it seems as if a new video site pops up constantly, as every traditional content provider tries to figure out a strategy, even as less cooperative techies like YouTube and Apple’s iTunes grow ever more popular.

So what better place to interview Volpi, a longtime Cisco exec (who was considered the heir apparent to CEO and Chairman John Chambers), than on the trendy Asia de Cuba patio at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Strip.

While Volpi has the tech cred, he is also pretty smooth for Silicon Valley, possessing a bit of Hollywood style and looking hipper than your average nerd (it’s obviously due to his Italian-born roots).

Well-liked and respected in the tech industry, the mechanical engineering grad from Stanford was raised in Japan, where his journalist mother covered a wide range of issues.

Yesterday in Los Angeles to make the rounds at the studios, trying to explain what Joost will do for them, Volpi talked with me about everything from Joost’s prospects to widgetmania to how you create great online content.

He also insulted me, calling me hyped (that’s the digital pot calling the Web kettle black!).

Here’s the first video with the second posted here:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Les Moonves is getting into the Internet in a big way, it seems, if you watch this onstage interview with the CBS CEO.

While it used to be that big old-media companies, including the powerful television networks, always seemed to display disdain for the online space, but these days they are talking it up like they invented it.

At the conference, in fact, Moonves unveiled CBS’s acquisition of Last.fm, the Internet social music platform, and spoke a lot about getting the company’s content everywhere.

By way of background, D: All Things Digital, the annual tech and media conference Walt Mossberg and I host, has been sold out with a long wait list every year we have put it on.

That has meant only a few hundred people can see the interviews and also demos we do live onstage with some of the tech and media industry’s most interesting and important players and products.

The lineups have included Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as Eric Schmidt of Google, IAC’s Barry Diller, Meg Whitman of eBay, Cisco’s John Chambers and many others.

And we’ve demoed stuff like the Treo when it first came out, as well as digital toilets, Wi-Fi phones and much more.

We usually post the photos and videos of the interviews and demos six or more months after they take place on a separate conference site. This year, our Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski live-blogged D5, and we also posted video highlights from all of the sessions immediately on our newly launched site here.

Now, we are posting videos of every session of the 2007 conference here, in full, and we have made all our photo galleries, hosted by SmugMug and mostly shot by our fabulous Asa Mathat, public too. You can also access our videos via the site’s master player here.

Every day, I am going to highlight a different interview or demo from the conference.

Here is Moonves:

I have known Larry Kramer since I was a college student in Washington, D.C., and he hired me as a stringer for the Washington Post’s Metro section–even after I insulted him about the newspaper’s terrible coverage of students. At the time, Kramer was running the section.

Since then–back in the dark ages and after a stint at the San Francisco Examiner–he has spent a lot of his time over the past decade building the financial news site MarketWatch, which was owned in large part by CBS and then sold to Dow Jones (owner of this site) in 2005.

He stayed on for a bit at CBS, working on its digital initiatives, but recently signed on as a senior adviser to Boston-based Polaris Ventures. There, he’ll be advising them on digital-media issues and helping their portfolio of companies.

Kramer has always had a lot of fast-forward opinions about the changes–or, more accurately, the turmoil–suffered by old-media companies in the wake of the digital onslaught. He talks about all that here, as well as making a prediction about the end of search as the big power in the sector.

Here is the video:

Starting Monday, we’ll be posting all of the interviews from D5 in their entirety. I will be posting and commenting on each interview here in this blog, but the videos will also reside in our video player.

While we have already posted the joint interview of Microsoft’s Bill Gates-Apple’s Steve Jobs, as well as a solo turn by Jobs and also one with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now you can watch lively discussions with film legend George Lucas, YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman and many more, as well as seeing our demos and other special video.

And you had no idea what you were going to watch in the midst of the summer doldrums. Now, let Cisco’s John Chambers liven up your day!