I’ve been thinking recently about how the ability to go "live" may affect many careers. Using the Sarah Lacy/Mark Zuckerberg keynote as our example, I want to share some thoughts with you. Whether you are a blogger or an entrepreneur, the ability to recognize when you’ve screwed up is critical for success.

Unlike those watching from far away, I was actually there in the room, arrived nearly two hours early so I could sit in the front and get ready to live blog the event. I watched the room fill up, people standing along the sides, cropped down, chairs changed to couches and audio tests. The number of cameras snapping photos when Mark came out was simply amazing - in fact it seemed like a press conference with the number of photographers in the pit.

I was very much looking forward to the interview. I heard there would be no new news, so perhaps we could learn more about Facebook’s strategy and monetization plans. This was my second time watching Zuckerberg live; the first was at the half-interview, half-infomercial at TC40 where Zuckerberg announced fbFund.

The truth is that the interview was a disaster. We are past it now so let’s take a look at how it could have been handled better. And how Sarah could have saved face. Sarah was trying to win over the crowd at Mark’s expense. She made many condescending statements towards Mark throughout including her comment about his journals. I have a set of journals Sarah and Om Malik had a series of posts last year about his journals. In addition, Lacy kept repeating "Stahl moment", which was completely out of line. If you know your subject has x or y issue, then you work around it.

I am 100% certain that Sarah had no idea it was going downhill from minute 3. Had she realized what was going on, she would have changed course. I’ve heard reports that her live interview with Kevin Rose also didn’t go so well but I wasn’t there so I can’t comment.

When the crowd started to applaud when Mark said "you’ve got to ask questions" it was actually 45 minutes of growing displeasure with where the interview was moving. I wasn’t on Twitter as I was typing the live notes but I can assure you that the feeling was all around the room and 98% of the audience were not on Twitter. I am guessing that Sarah still didn’t realize what was going on and I absolutely feel horrible for her. Once she realized what was going on, she had two choices: act professionally or act like a young child who didn’t get her way. She chose the latter.

Her comments on stage including, "you try doing what im doing for a living, it’s not as easy as it looks" and "can someone email me and tell me why I sucked so bad", made the situation worse as she threw grease on the fire. When you are on stage and being heckled, just be professional and move on.

When she ran off stage after the keynote was over, she should have relaxed for a bit. After getting some air, she could have looked for feedback. Instead she ran to Twitter and said, "seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things." Not only did she piss off almost the entire audience during the event, she has just told me to fuck-off. Lacy’s Twitter statement makes me realize that I’ve just wasted three hours. These were hours that could have been spent out partying or at my friend’s session.

One of my mentors says, "perception equals reality". It doesn’t matter what’s right when people perceive something else is right. Before, during and after, Sarah had a variety of stopping points in which to change course and save face.

• When she realized that the audience wasn’t pleased and asked for Q/A, she could have just moved to it and not made the "woe is me" comments.
• She didn’t need to post on Twitter.
• She could have easily apologized to those who felt like they didn’t get their money’s worth from the interview.
• She could have posted a simple survey if she was really interested in feedback on what happened.
• When she was interviewed on camera that evening, she could have dropped the defensive bit and just made a simple statement about what happened and apologized.
• Lastly, before the event, she could have asked her readers what they would ask Mark. Instant winner with this one.

Brian Solis has posted a commentary on the situation including the following comment. "If you think she owes you an apology or needs to fall on the sword for her Q&A with Zuckerberg, don’t hold your breath. Sarah Lacy doesn’t need to apologize to anyone other than Mark." Wrong Brian, wrong. We were her customers and when your customers aren’t happy, you apologize and make it right. Customer is #1. Zuckerberg wasn’t the customer.

Here’s the net result and takeaway. When you screw up or your customers believe you have screwed up, apologize. And if you do apologize, mean it. It’s acceptable to admit when you make errors or miscalculations. What’s great about the Web is that we are all willing to help you back up. Just look at how many chances we’ve given Twitter.

As the world moves to "live", we all need a pause button. Blog attacks are so 2007. Today we have live Twitter attacks and outbursts. Who knows which attack or outburst might actually cause you to lose a deal, a client or worse? Keep thinking to yourself, "breathe before reply."

Sarah said on camera that the audience has ruined SXSW for ever getting a high level person again. I’d wonder if Sarah’s will get another chance at a keynote like the one at SXSW after her inability to apologize when her readers and viewers weren’t satisfied.

Sarah can still make it right. She could explain why the interview didn’t work and how she is working on changing for the future. I’d be interested in speaking with Sarah about her learnings, I am sure we could all benefit so we don’t make the same mistakes.

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My second visit to SXSW is now over and it was great. Met a ton of great people and thanks to everyone for saying hi and appreciate all of the great feedback over the past week. Tomorrow we return to normal coverage and bid Austin and the birds adieu.

• Schwag Giveaway - Gary V’s Sweat, Facebook Tshirts, Seesmic Stickers and More
• Hats Off To The Twitter Team
• Hey Far Away Haters, Here’s Why I Enjoy SXSW
• Video Interview - Kyte.TV Explains The Difference With Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon
• The (Apparently) Two Sides of Mark Zuckerberg
• Panel Recap: Good Analytics Can Get You Booty
• Startup Pricing Suggestions - Reduce And Raise
• Facebook Garage Live Blogging w/Mark Zuckerberg
• Kyte Pulls a Twitter
• Viddler Dinner Recap: Lots of Celebs and Kevin Rose / Gary V Are CN Fans!
• Stickam Demo Video
• The Ninja Accepts
• Web Awards Winners
• Exclusive: Bitstrips Demo Video - Launching Today
• Keynote: Mark Zuckerberg - Live Notes Plus Post-Keynote Crowd Reactions
• Contextual Web Session Recap
• The SXSW Bag, "We Waste Paper"

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SXSW has come to a close and sadly there wasn’t that much to pick up for ya’all this year. If you watched my SXSW bag video, you will see that the bag was loaded with a lot of paper and almost nothing else. I prefer pens and mints over everything else but there were no pens to be found! Anywhoo, here is what I grabbed for you. If you would like one of the items, send in a note with which item you’d like and next Wednesday I will pick a lucky winner. If you’ve already received an item from CN, let someone else grab one.

Wine Library TV Wrist band - this wrist band was actually worn by international wine star Gary Vaynerchuk. Using a meter, there is 1 oz. of sweat in said band.

Facebook Developer Garage t-shirt - given to me at the developer garage event - the tshirt is for women size M.

Seesmic stickers

Actual SXSW bag - this is the bag for 2008 and has Adobe on one side plus the image below on the other side

"Fuck It - I’d Fund That" tshirt - women size S - from vcwear.com

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Lots of people (including us) were wondering how well Twitter would handle SXSW after some brief outages at FOWA. The Twitter team explained how they would handle the surge in messages before we boarded planes for Austin. Though the chatter on Friday was around how long it would be before Twitter went down and how we would all use morse code to effectively communicate.

While the WiFi in the hotels, bars and in the convention center itself was barely working for the majority of the event (though better than last year), Twitter was up the entire time. Not one blip.

This is a virtual high-5 to the entire Twitter team for a job well done!

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We were the first to write about the CrunchyRoll $4.05 million venture capital round last month. The good doctor Tony Hung took a look at CrunchyRoll and went deep into the copyright and believes that CrunchyRoll is a "legal landmine." 

Hung is back tonight with some excellent research into the fansubbing community on CrunchyRoll. CrunchyRoll members don’t just upload videos, they also subtitle them and this is called "fansubbing". Apparently the community isn’t happy with the success that CrunchyRoll has received and the round of funding and have begun to show their feelings on the deal. Hung explains that the Fansubbers could also be the target of legal action. Check out Hung’s research on the topic.

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Source:CenterNetworks

Over the past couple of days, there have been some people hating on SXSW from far off lands. I’d like to share why I have enjoyed SXSW both last year and this year. It’s important to remember that this is a general interactive conference, not a developer-focused conference. Designers, developers, marketers, PR, anyone involved in the interactive space are welcome to attend and participate.

Environment

By environment I mean Austin. I find Austin to be completely relaxing - the pace is a bit slower, the air is freaking clean, and there is a welcoming nature for the locals. I’ve lived in cities before where x event takes over the city and normally the town fights it, but here they seem to welcome us with open arms. And then there’s the birds.

Price

Many conferences today run $2,000 and higher for 2-3 days, here you can attend for $325-400 for what’s nearly a week of sessions, keynotes, an expo and networking. I’ve always judged conferences based on price/results and this one is the best hands down. Almost anyone can afford this event allowing for a greater diversification of full-time to indies.

Approachability

This is the game changer for SXSW. Walking around the 10 football fields from one room to another, every person is approachable. No matter how big the name or what they’ve done in the past, everyone is willing to chat openly and honestly. I had a chance to chat with so many great people including: Kevin Rose, iJustine, Gary Vaynerchuk, Hugh MacLeod, Tris Hussey, Stowe Boyd, Chris Saad, Jeremiah Owyang, the whole Rocketboom gang, and hundreds more great people. I even saw Larissa Meek today but didn’t get a chance to chat with her.

This is not to mention the networking that goes on during the event. I have a good number of new contacts and Scoble keeps saying that the best conversations are those going around in the hallways.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere at SXSW is also like no other. People come as they are, no suits, no dress slacks, no wing tips. Lots of tshirts (this year with phrases on them no brands except Digg), shorts, jeans, sneakers and even one guy in a kilt. Some tell me that there’s a family dynamic at SXSW. I think it’s more of a, "hey, we’ve chatted online for a year, it’s great to meet face-to-face!" dynamic. It’s almost like I know everyone at the conference just because we’ve connected in one way or another over the past year.

Session Quality

The sessions at SXSW are decided on by the audience and that helps to bring the best ones to Austin. Are they all great? Of course not, but compared to most other conferences, they are on-par or above average.

Keynote Variety

The conference organizers do a good job of bringing in a variety of thought for the keynotes. What shocked me is just how many flashbulbs went off during the Mark Zuckerberg keynote. I was in the third row and there were at least thirty photographers down on the floor during the entire event, not including the hundreds of cameras in the audience popping pictures throughout. You’d think he was a huge rockstar or Britney!

So far I’ve heard the best reaction to the first keynote with Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson. Three people said that the discussion was very inspirational.

Those are my reasons why I enjoy SXSW, why do you enjoy (or not) SXSW? (leave a comment or send me a link from your blog)

After my post about Kyte yesterday, the team asked me to swing by their booth. Let me just say that what they showed me was impressive. They showed me their 2-minute full Facebook application along with the one-minute embed option. The system works with mobile phones, webcams, and saved videos. We were able to take my mobile phone, create a video, email it to Kyte and it was online immediately in my channel. The live features work mainly with the Nokia N95 (Nokia is an investor in Kyte).

With all of the new live video services hitting the airwaves recently, I asked co-founder Daniel Graf about the differences between Kyte and Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon. Here’s his video response:

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To-date, I’ve watched Facebook CEO live four times: Michael Arrington’s interview at TC40 (which was half-interview, half-infomercial for fbFund), 60 Minutes, this week with Sarah Lacy at SXSW and yesterday at the Facebook developer garage.

Everyone has called him awkward, reserved, difficult to interview, etc. What I can assure you is that in a 24-hour period I witnessed two different sides of Mark Zuckerberg. We all know how the interview with Lacy went, so I won’t rehash it as most of us have moved on.

At the Facebook developer garage yesterday, it was like night-and-day. Mark was open, conversational, and even a bit funny (ok, just a bit). He did the professional thing by not mentioning the interview the day prior except to say that many people asked for more time for q&a and he wanted to offer more time.

There was a warmth in the room that wasn’t there the day before. Mark answered every question that was asked of him without stock answers as he did the day before. The "we are focused on communication between people" didn’t come out of his mouth once and when one person asked him about his personal life, he answered.

I now get why so many app developers are building on the Facebook platform. It’s not only about the Facebook name or Zuckerberg, it’s not just about the potential money (if there is any), it’s about the tight developer community that’s been created, a community that MySpace doesn’t have.

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Yesterday, Dave McClure, Ted Rheingold, Hiten Shah, Jia Shen and Todd Vernon took to the stage for a panel about startup analytics. The room was packed and the discussion was great. The guys dressed up like pirates and said "AARRR" 24,217 times. Here are some of the net takeaways.

If you do good analytics you can make booty (booty is the pirate term for money). You must test, test and then re-test all of your marketing ideas. Just because one is doing well, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better one still.

There are five parts to the customer lifecycle:

• Acquisition
• Activation
• Retention
• Referral
• Revenue
• in other words… AARRR

3 business models

• get users
• drive usage
• make money = and hopefully its profitable money
• you must turn the users and the usage into money or get bought

Pretty graphs mean nothing if you don’t do something with it - and perhaps give one metric to each team member to manage

If using landing pages, do lots of tests - the panel said that mentioning the referrer was beneficial "Welcome from Forbes"

Below $20/month is a good number to hit, people seem to stay with this and won’t go through the hassle of cancelling

Hiring a blogger part-time could be a good way to build seo for the company terms

Ted from Dogster explains that by making dynamic landing pages increased registrations

• They got 2,000 registrations but lower numbers of activations - 60%
• Not all activations become active members
• Realized that the terms that they want to rank for don’t appear on the home page
• Got more traffic via organic changes than in a month they spent $90k in online ads

Lijit realized that by testing different entry pages, they were able to increase signups and activations by a large percentage.

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At the South by Southwest Conference, I spoke with an entrepreneur who suggested that the best thing you could do to find new clientele is to lessen the pricing options and i