For all the tech geeks out there, it’s time to come out from behind your tablets, mobiles and PC screens and into the real world. Because neither emoticons nor chat messages can substitute the real you. Whatever you have to sell, it will be have to be through your physical appearance. And Mark Zuckerberg will vouch for that.
TechCrunch is a media platform that covers all things technology. TechCrunch Disrupt SF is an annual global event. It serves as an introductory platform for startup ventures. (Yammer started off here). The event concludes with a grand trophy, which is a cash prize of USD 50,000 to the most innovative startup of the year.
This year, Disrupt SF 2012 attracted scores of startups (estimated at 300) and angel investors from all over the world. For instance, the all-women run Forerunner Ventures. Another business initiative was presented by Hacker Rank as “The Olympics of Programming” for “building the largest collection of the world’s most interesting problems for hackers to solve.
The presentation of each has been aggressive on the Battlefield. Microsoft GM Rahul Sood criticized p (k) Prior Knowledge, a cloud-based predictive database startup for application developers. Sood suggested a balance of business with creativity and for p (k) to include marketing professionals in their all-engineer team.
With tough competition, the judges’ panel, which includes CEO, Yahoo! Marissa Mayer, had a hard time deciding this year’s trophy winner.
The Facebook legacy
The highlight of this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt was the Fireside Chat with Facebook’s CEO. With 950 million users, there’s no looking back for Facebook’s CEO. This was his first appearance following the IPO plummet, which seems to have cleared the air a bit. It wasn’t just about what he spoke, which he could have sent on an e-mail.
Zuckerberg presence seems to have reassured investors that the social network has a viable future worth considering seriously. No sooner had his conversation ended with Michael Arrington of CrunchFund when Facebook shares rose by 4.6%.
Zuckerberg spoke of deeper mobile integration and monetization, work on “long term projects and build good stuff,” and plenty of opportunities in gaming and search conduction. He added how Facebook applications drive morale, such as on Instagram.
The interview also dispelled rumors regarding a Facebook mobile. Facebook is keener on integration on “all devices” than invest in hardware, Zuckerberg confirmed.
Referring to his own codes, Zuckerberg said “Everything we do breaks, but we fix it quickly.” It emitted laughter from the audience, but Facebook users still criticize the cost of such ‘mistakes’ that resulted in irreversible privacy loss. However, Zuckerberg admitted to “betting too much on HTML5 than native” being their “biggest strategic mistake” in mobile development, now rectified on iOS with Objective C as programming language.
With all said and done, all startups and seasoned businesses should learn from this: there is no room for mistakes in the tech world, whether it’s one user or 950 million of them.
Salman Ghaznavi is the founder of Avenuesocial Inc. a company focused on social media marketing and tool design & development. Avenuesocial is one of the premium Facebook App Consultants, and My role is to actively pursue a global strategy, create and help roll-out Avenuesocial social tool, the AS Pathways. The AS Pathways tool offers social media marketing and analytics with integrated campaign management (on Facebook and Twitter), multi-channel execution, engagement reports and user management.
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