Facebook news

WIRED

GEAR

Autopia

Stockholm's New Electric Ferry Takes Just 10 Minutes toCharge

This 2,000 Horsepower Electric Dragster Could Hit 200MPH

RIP, Car Washes: See Nissan's New Self-Cleaning Paint inAction

Gadget Lab

The Year of the Facebook | Gadget Lab | WIRED http://www.wired.com/2014/05/facebook-f8/

1 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

It's Now Easier Than Ever to Find Vine Videos Online

Our Favorite New App Makes It Easy to Search Instagram byLocation

Android Modders, Your Ultimate Flagship Phone HasArrived

Reviews

Dazed and Confused

These Satellite Gadgets Will Save Your Butt in the


2 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Backcountry

Small Type

SCIENCE

Science

Absurd Creature of the Week: This Marsupial Has MarathonSex Until It Goes Blind and Drops Dead

Fantastic Sci-Fi Art Shows You a Beautiful, BewilderingFuture

Science Graphic of the Week: Dying Star Collapsing IntoBlack Hole Emits Corkscrew Light

Science Blogs


3 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

On the Cutting Edge of Musical Innovation

What's the Pressure Inside an Exploding Whale?

Should Spider-Man Swing or Run?

ENTERTAINMENT

Game|Life

10 Years Later, Final Fantasy Concerts Get a Much-NeededReboot


4 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

How Obsessed Fans Finally Exhumed Atari's Secret GameGraveyard

This Portal 2 Mod Lets You Play Against Yourself

Playbook

The Soul of Surfing: Hand-Shaped Boards in a Factory-BuiltWorld

New Camera System Helps Soccer Refs Make the RightCalls

Wheeling and Dealing: The Latest Trends and Toys for theBiking Set

Underwire


5 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

You Can Snag These 10 Awesome Comics for Free Tomorrow

Catch Up On All the Must-Watch TV You Missed This Week

We're Keeping Things Cool (Mostly) in This Weekend'sPlaylist

BUSINESS

Business

Snapchat Isn’t Just for Selfies Anymore


6 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Surprise! Your FarmVille Games Have Helped Raise Millionsfor Charity

Facebook Can Now Deliver Ads to Almost Any App

Business Conference

Promotion

In today's business world, disruption is a constant force that neverlets up. At the annual WIRED Business Conference: Disruptive byDesign, we celebrate the creative power of bold new ideas and thepeople that make them happen.

See the event >

Enterprise

Tech Time Warp of the Week: Watch Steve Jobs Play FDR inan Epic Apple Sales Video


7 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

How Netflix Is Transforming the Economics of the Web

Ohio Bans Buying Booze With Bitcoin

Innovation Insights

The Way to the Future Through Collaboration: TinkeringWith the Bounds of What’s Possible

Business Success Is Happening Faster Than Ever, But So IsFailure. How to Adapt

Wearable Tech: From Smartphones to Smart Living


8 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

The Connective 2.0

Sponsor Content

Explore what’s new and innovative in the era of the Internet ofEverything.

Visit the Connective 2.0 >

SECURITY

Danger Room

Black Hawk Drone: Army's Iconic Helicopter Goes Pilotless

Pentagon's Superpowered Autopilot Will Do the Work of 5Crew Members


9 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

The Silent Hybrid Motorcycles the Pentagon Will Use forStealth Raids

Threat Level

Cops Must Swear Silence to Access Vehicle Tracking System

Hackers Can Mess With Traffic Lights to Jam Roads andReroute Cars

'Dark Wallet' Is About to Make Bitcoin Money LaunderingEasier Than Ever

DESIGN

Design


10 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

5 New Record-Breaking Roller Coasters That Will TerrifyYou This Summer

Conduct a Virtual Symphony With Touchscreens and anInteractive Baton

A Wild Modernized Disco Ball That Will Melt Your Mind

Raw File

Step Inside Eerie Rooms Meticulously Pieced Together byHand


11 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

The Crazy Train Surfers Who Flirt With Death for Sport

Gritty Instagrams of the Biggest Election in the World

OPINION

Opinion

The Universe Is Programmable. We Need an API forEverything

We Need Online Alter Egos Now More Than Ever

Here's the Right Way to Build the Futuristic Cities of OurDreams

MAGAZINE


12 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Current Issue

Subscribe

5 New Record-Breaking Roller Coasters That Will TerrifyYou This Summer

Find an Apartment in No Time With These Essential Apps

How Thoroughbreds Convert Air Into Blazing Speed

Video


13 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Insider

Subscribe

RSS

Search

Gadget Lab


14 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Follow WiredTwitterFacebookRSS

The Year of the Facebook

By Mat Honan05.02.14 | 6:30 am | Permalink

Share on Facebook0Tweet


15 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty

These were the days when everyone was still beautiful, and we were all still rich.The things big bubble-pop doomsayers kept predicting hadn’t happened yet, andFacebook was on top of everything else. It was just firing. And firing. And firing.Even the misses–Paper and Home and Poke–seemed like they didn’t matterbecause its hits were so vital. And with the wind at its back, the fog of war blewaway from its eyes and into those of its enemies. It seemed like only Mark couldsee clearly.

It was the day of the F8 conference, where developers and press got together tohear the new gospel according to Mark. I walked to the convention center, pastthe big Google bus stop on 8th street where tired techies lounged on theirphones for the long ride to Mountain View. I stepped into the street to see if thecity bus was approaching, and almost put my toe in a pile of human feces. Therewere homeless people and other desperate types all around, and rememberingthis I pocketed my phone, which I had been staring down at as I hoofed it.Whatever. It was a gorgeous day and I didn’t mind the walk.

When I arrived at the conference, a Facebooker tried to hand me a bag. I didn’twant a bag. For 15 years, people at registration desks had been handing mecanvas tote bags full of useless papers and schedules that I typically only carriedas far as the nearest trash can. I preferred my schedules on apps. It was the ageof the app, after all. But just as I said no, I actually looked at the bag, danglingfrom the helpful wrist of the helpful lady: a bright yellow Fjallraven Swedishhipster backpack. At the time, when you Googled Swedish Hipster Backpack, thisFjallraven was the first result. I’d seen these bags all over Portland and Brooklyn,but had never had one of my own. They felt a bit young, and I was getting older.But it was a very nice bag. I reconsidered. I said yes.


16 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Photo: ArielZambelich/WIRED

I mean, if Facebook wanted to buy us all $100 backpacks, who was I to say no?Money was flowing from the air vents down in Menlo Park: $2.5 billion just thatfirst quarter alone. A fortune in ads. Click click click. So much money you couldhardly smell the brown bullshit through that green aroma. And besides,compared with Zuck’s media training and charisma lessons, the backpackprobably cost next to nothing. He was good, and so convincing that hispersonality almost seemed real. At any moment now, I kept expecting him tohave an actual emotion.

Mark took the stage. His moment. Facebook’s leader was almost 30, and it waseasy to see that he was a man now. His training had paid off. He was confidentand poised and showed no signs of the awkwardness or petulance of his youth.He was amazing. A great speaker. A true CEO. And as he talked about WhatFacebook Was Doing, it was hard not to draw comparisons with its competition–assuming you thought it had any competition.

One day before F8, Twitter (possibly the closest thing Facebook had to a cousin)posted laughable growth numbers, leading The Atlantic to publish a eulogy for itthat very morning. The week before that, Vic Gundotra, the man Google hadtapped to lead its own social network, left the company–presumably forced out.Satya Nadella was suddenly and at last Microsoft’s new CEO, still unproven andtasked with turning around a lumbering giant. The newly-minted Big Companiesweren’t faring much better. Nobody really knew what the hell was happeningwith the Box IPO; many considered Dropbox’s latest board member to be a warcriminal. Even at mighty Apple, iPad sales were down, and Steve Jobs was still


17 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

dead. And over it all loomed the question of The Bubble. Nothing seemed certain.Who cares!

Facebook was still shooting, and still knocking down targets. Everything wasright. Nothing was wrong. The company was so confident it didn’t even bother toroll out any new products at its developer fest that day.

Deborah Liu, Facebook’s Person Who Makes Facebook Make Everybody Money,pounced on the stage and began with a lament. Facebook, she said, had longbeen the top app on both iOS and Android, but couldn’t cash in on mobile. “Wehad to figure it out,” she explained, eyes big, eyes sincere. And they did! Ads forapps within its own app ads would bring mountains of app ad money, generatedby clicks. Or taps? Click. Click. Click. Tap tap tap here’s an app app app. Enjoyyour new newsfeed.

Nevermind that much of Facebook’s advertising comes from venture-backedapps, and that if the app bubble pops, Facebook’s money machine could seizeup–just as it had happened to magazines a decade before. Today wasn’t a day forcards to fall.

No. Instead, Liu told developers how Facebook’s new mobile ad platform wouldlet anyone run Facebook-network ads from inside their own apps–ads for appsinside your app. “Beautiful ads,” she promised. “Relevant ads.” Pretty, pretty ads.Pretty pretty ads for pretty pretty apps. “I click and I buy,” she said, and back inthose days, we did too.


18 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

The crowd as Zuck delivers his keynote address at F8. Photo: JustinSullivan/Getty

As the keynote ended, Sheryl Sandberg walked up and down the corridorgreeting the press. I sat in a chair on the aisle, and she leaned in over me,greeting a red-headed technology reporter seated to my left. And then she wasoff to talk to a large bear of a bearded fellow in plaid, sleeves rolled up to revealarmlengths of tattoos. I watched her go, my hand still extended. We never met.

We sauntered on to the press room and ate sushi and roast beef. I saw kale saladon the menu but never tried it. Instead I left to wander the exhibits and see whatFacebook wanted to show me. The line to try out Oculus stretched more than 75people-long, far past the oversized LEGO furniture. At its front, young men inmasks with haircuts from one-eyed barbers ducked and weaved in their chairs,peering around nonexistent corners at the future.

Downstairs, Internet.org was literally changing the world, exposing millions ofpreviously internet-starved subsistence farmers to the magic of Facebook.

And the world was there to be changed: countless countries in attendance. Italked to people from Italy (press), France (developer), the Ukraine (Facebook),Israel (press), India (Facebook) and Denmark (developer). In fairness, the guys


19 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

from Denmark, India, and the Ukraine already lived in the Bay Area. But still,here they were.

Ahhhhhh, there was just so much goddamned money. Money everywhere. $19billion for What’sApp? Sure. Another $2 billion for Oculus? Why the hell not. Theads had done their thing. And Facebook, generously, wanted to share the wealth.

One day the party would have to end. And the in-app ads for apps backed byangels and venture would wither. The big circle of money would flatten out andthud to a halt and the people on the surface would go soaring off, launched intothe void like kozmo.com. San Francisco would empty out and we would all be somelancholy, even though we were finally able to afford apartments again.

But not on that Wednesday. Not when Facebook was the only company doing itright. The company on top of the heap, mature but still young and confident andnever more beautiful. On that day it was 90 degrees and sunny in San Francisco,but a cool breeze blew in from the ocean. And as I walked down to Ocean Beachat the end of that day to watch the sun sink into the Pacific ocean, I pulled acraft-brewed IPA from my yellow hipster backpack and drank it right there.There were hundreds or maybe even thousands of people all lounging on thenormally sparse and windy shore. It really was a beautiful day.

Share on Facebook0Tweet

RedditDiggStumble UponEmail

Discuss |Permalink

Subscribe to Wired Magazine

Advertisement

Wired gadgetlab

EditorsMichael CaloreBryan Gardiner


20 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Subscribe to a magazine: Condé Nast web sites:

International Sites:

WIRED.com © 2014 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this Site constitutesacceptance of our User Agreement (effective 01/02/2014) and Privacy Policy(effective 01/02/2014). Your California Privacy Rights.

The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cachedor otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

Ad Choices


22 of 22 02.05.2014 17:39

Facebook news

Documents

Transcript of Facebook news