Influx

Watching last night’s launch of Facebook’s new “Places” product, it was impossible not to be struck by the youth, style and approach of Zuckerberg and his team. This was not corporate America as usual; it was causal, straight-forward and importantly, honest.

They launched a product that because it’s on Facebook, will be huge, but it’s nothing that Foursquare and Gowalla haven’t done before, but importantly that didn’t over-promise- they talked about slow global roll out and not attacking things like turning TV shows into places or trying to instantly monetize the product.

Importantly, the journalists seemed in awe of the Facebook team, hanging on ever word and enjoying the various rituals and icons like the gong banging session and the wooden launch switch. There were other “bells and whistles” for them to enjoy like this real-time view of check-ins.

Zuckerberg has been in the firing line for his inability to cope with tough media situations, but yesterday in his own environment- he was calm, collected and confident. It was so refreshing to see a corporate team just being themselves and not pandering to what was probably a massive worldwide audience.

This was a lesson to the rest of corporate America that there’s a generation out there who don’t want to play by the rules and don’t want to hide behind titles and the false entity of the corporation.

Posted by Ed Cotton