Mark Zuckerberg and Jerry Seinfeld Show How Facebook Live Is Best-Used
Other than feeling awkward on camera.
Halfway through Mark Zuckerberg’s first Facebook Live Q&A, he left the sight of the camera to see if anyone in the office had a few minutes to join him. When he returned, he had Jerry Seinfeld beside him.
“I had no idea you would be here,” Seinfeld said as he snuggled into a seat on the couch next to Zuckerberg. A cringe-inducing and staged entrance, to say the least. Yet no matter how much secondhand embarrassment viewers likely felt, Seinfeld and Zuckerberg ultimately found the key to Facebook Live: direct interaction with commenters.
The “surprise” visit from Seinfeld apparently happened because he was testing out the new demo features in the Oculus Rift (he’s a fan) and giving Facebook employees an exclusive peak at the newest episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
While the first 40 minutes of the Live video featured Zuckerberg talking about how technology can change life for the better through a global community, the latter half featured Seinfeld interviewing Zuckerberg about life in general. Really general, as in the minutiae of breakfast, bathroom schedules, and broken arms.
Skip to minute 43 to see the segment with Seinfeld.
In all fairness, Seinfeld was able to draw personal details out of the premier tech nerd of the current generation. Viewers learned that Zuckerberg woke up at 6 a.m. that morning for example (not because he’s a morning person, but because his daughter Max screams like a pterodactyl). Also that Zuckerberg checks Facebook and WhatsApp right when he wakes up (even before he goes to the bathroom).
Seinfeld treated the conversation with Zuckerberg like two guys forced to wait on their wives together — direct eye contact and all.
The view counter at the top left of the video pre-Seinfeld showed some 117,000 people watching. As Seinfeld confessed that he loves the smell of bike shops, and Zuckerberg talked about training for a marathon, then struggled to come up with an original question for Seinfeld, the views ticked down to 96,000.
Soon as the duo turned back to the comments to see if anyone had questions, though, the view count started marching back up.
As awkward as it all was, at least Zuckerberg himself made it a little more clear how to use Facebook Live.
