Gist! Gist!! Gist!!!
Apparently, Mark was up yesterday at Mobile World Congress and just as I thought, he was actually there to evangelize about his "affordable internet" project
He wasn't there to justify Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase
Facebook just bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, so obviously Kirkpatrick asked what was going on there. But Zuckerberg initially changed the conversation to Internet.org.
He was there to justify Internet.org
Internet.org, which Zuckerberg founded last year, launched as a partnership between Facebook and six mobile services companies ( click hereto read all you need to know about it or watch the video below).
“This is why I started Facebook,” Zuckerberg said. He admitted that Internet.org was going to lose money for a long period of time, but he still wants to do it. “There’s no clear plan that I can say today, that this will be good for Facebook, but I can say it will be good for the world.”
Zuckerberg noted that he lacked a clear plan for monetization when he started Facebook as well, but he believes that if they successfully connect everyone, there will be a way to reap the benefits of an Internet.org-connected world.
He’s looking for three to five more partnerships with carriers on Internet.org
Kirkpatrick asked what Zuckerberg wanted from carriers, seeing as Mobile World Congress is chock-full of them. Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook is looking for just a few intensive partnerships. “For the next year, we’re really just looking to work with three or five companies that are really serious about trying to connect everyone in their country using free basic services,” he said.
Facebook actually wants to minimize data use
Zuckerberg talked about the company’s purchase of data compression startup Onovo and the company’s efforts to make apps more data-efficient. That’s why the company is working with Ericsson to open something called the Innovation Lab on its campus. This lab will help other app makers tweak their programs so they use less data.
Apparently Internet.org is a coalition, not just a Facebook-only project.
Zuckerberg emphasized that Internet.org is a collaborative effort. It was pretty unconvincing.
Facebook defriended Snapchat
An audience member asked if Facebook was still interested in Snapchat and Zuckerberg made a face like he just bit into a poo-covered pretzel. When Kirkpatrick repeated the question, Zuckerberg said, “No.” And then he chuckled and said that Facebook was done buying companies for a while, since they had just made the WhatsApp purchase.
AirtelBlog.
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