Mark Zuckerberg Keynote At MWC Is A Snorefest

This article originally appeared on 60 Second Social.

No literally, it was actually a complete snorefest as Zuckerberg bored the pants of us for an hour. This tweet was taken from the actual event itself!

I have to be honest though, the problem was not Mark Zuckerberg, Mark was in Barcelona to talk about Internet.org which is Facebook’s effort to bring internet connectivity to the developing world with the help of mobile carriers.

That is pretty interesting to hear about to be honest and it was going well at the start, the problems began when three carrier partners came up on stage dressed formally compared to Zuckerberg and they started to talk about technical things such as how working with Facebook affects their bottom lines, how free messaging on services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger can eat into their revenue and people lost interest fast.

Zuckerberg wants carriers to move to the front of the Internet.org movement saying that they are the ones with the power to connect the world. However it is clear that the relationship can be difficult at times, Jon Fredrik Baksaas was one of the people who joined Zuckerberg on stage and said that services such as WhatsApp and Messenger erode the relationship with carriers as it eats into revenue.

Zuckerberg was sensitive to the issue and pointed out that WhatsApp and Messenger are never an option of the Internet.org plan as they would be too cannibalistic.

However by this point, people were walking out of the keynote.

The problem was that people wanted to hear from Zuckerberg, not the carriers. People had queued up for hours to get a seat for the keynote and when the carriers were brought on stage Zuckerberg was pretty mute for large parts of the conversation.

As a result, many people walked out, clearly feeling their time would be better spent elsewhere. It was a poor showing from one of the top social media leaders in the world.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis, he is also a proud father of his bearded dragon, Lola. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here.