BoomTown » Randi Zuckerberg

"Changing the World Through the Web": Video Interviews with Zuckerberg, Kutcher, Rospars and Shah

Kara Swisher — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000

Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

It turned out to be a lively session with the sharp digitally-focused group, which was the first tech panel at the six-year-old conference.

Here are video interviews I did with each of them (and you can see other video scenes from the conference here):

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Visits the Women's Conference (Questions for Ashton Kutcher, Please!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:57:20 +0000

This morning, BoomTown will be onstage at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, to moderate a panel titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of 1,800 people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues include Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher (pictured above, of course); Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In other words, as a group, they are all either prettier, smarter or better for the planet than anything I have ginned up so far.

But, to be safe, send some question suggestions quick that you think I should ask in the interview–via Twitter @karaswisher.

In any case, I shall press on and try to conduct myself with some kind of tech dignity, as I query the group on how the Web–especially social media–can empower people to change the world and be more than just one big pool of mundanities, meaningless status updates, silly apps and online gossip.

Speaking of which, it was a minor shock to run smack into reality show whatever-she-is Kate Gosselin at a speaker party last night, who is here to flack a book about–of course–her kids, titled “Eight Little Faces.”

No, I did not make that title up and I suppose it takes all kinds.

But it was especially surreal, since other speakers include–how shall I put this delicately?–much more serious and substantial women, such as primatology legend Dr. Jane Goodall, women’s rights activist Eve Ensler, Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, a spate of women news legends such as Katie Couric, and even–my personal favorite, for her cheery butter-loving nature–celebrity chef Paula Deen.

For those interested in seeing some of the all-day event online, there’s a live Webcast from the Web site, which you can access here (the Twitter hashtag is #wc09

I will, natch, post a video report later.

BoomTown's Top 10 List of Fact-Challenged Revelations That Should Be in the Facebook Tell-All Book

Kara Swisher — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:34:39 +0000

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.:

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Tours the New Facebook HQ (and Gets Ripped): The Uncut Video!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:32 +0000

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:

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Visits Burda's DLD Luncheon in Silicon Valley!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:23:35 +0000

Yesterday, WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg and I jumped into the BoomTownMini and took a road trip down the lovely 280 to Palo Alto’s MacArthur Park restaurant for a lunch thrown by Germany’s Hubert Burda Media.

Burda runs an annual digital conference in Munich called DLD (Digital, Life, Design), which a lot of U.S. tech types have gone to, including me, even though the media giant is best known for its old-line magazines about fashion, cooking and crafts.

But Burda has also been dipping into the digital sector a lot, especially via the tireless tech networking of the company’s Steffi Czerny and Marcel Reichart, who have established a high profile for the company among Silicon Valley denizens.

That was in evidence at Burda’s luncheon yesterday, which was crowded with a panoply of techies and hosted by Czerny, Maria Burda, the wife of CEO and owner Hubert Burda, and well-known Israeli investor Yossi Vardi.

Czerny has been taking Maria Burda (pictured here, she is also a famous German television star, better known as Maria Furtwängler) around the Valley on a learning tour this week to meet with companies like Ning, Mozilla, Facebook, and with venture capitalists. They are also here to attend Google’s Zeitgeist partners’ event, which starts today.

Here’s a video of yesterday’s luncheon, where I was asking everyone about the troubled economic situation and more.

It includes chats with Mullenweg and Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur, BillShrink’s Peter Pham, Facebook’s Brandee Barker and Randi Zuckerberg, Wired’s Steven Levy, Vardi and Burda and Czerny:

[ See post to watch video ]

VC Baby!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:42:59 +0000

Yet another music video parody is making the rounds. This time, it’s from Revision3 Gazette and called “VC Baby.”

No, it’s not about Mark Zuckerberg, although his very talented sister Randi provided the vocals here, which are lip-synched by the comely lass singing to her VC to the tune of “Santa Baby.”

Our favorite line: “It’s Web 2.Ho-Ho-Ho.”

(Let’s hope some grinch doesn’t take this one down, as “Here Comes Another Bubble” was!)