A couple hundred people seated in room very prominently branded with Facebook’s colors and logos applaud very loudly as President Barack Obama enters the room at 1:58 p.m. Originally scheduled to begin at 1:45 pm Pacific Standard Time, the event is already running late. Be sure to hit refresh regularly to keep up with our updates. Meanwhile, you can watch a livestream at the bottom of this post.
Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has entered the room at about 1:53 p.m. to begin introducing the event. She says Obama has 19 million likes on the site. “Welcome home, Mr. President.” She’s introducing California Lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Palo Alto Mayor Sidney Espinoza, Santa Clara County Assembly Member Nora Campos and many other local politicians.
“Even though it’s Facebook, no poking the President,” she said.
Then she introduced Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg at 1:56 p.m. and he appears unusually dressed up in a tie and jacket, with blue jeans and sneakers. “I’m kind of nervous. We have the President of the United States here,” he says.
Obama jokes that he’s the one who got Zuckerberg to wear a tie and jacket, twice. Apparently the president convinced the CEO to remove his jacket once before and again today.
The cameras had gone on about an hour and 15 minutes early, starting at 12:30 p.m. Pacific standard time, showing the room where the Town Hall will take place and playing official sounding music that replays about every five minutes or so. You can see a few Secret Service agents in suits, plus a mix of casually-attired Facebook employees and professionally-dressed guests of the company milling about.
Starting at 1:45, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg will field questions to the President that have been submitted by users of the social network.
But at about 12:50 p.m., former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi just appeared on the camera wearing a bright red pantsuit — that will make sure we can spot her throughout the afternoon. She’s posting for pictures in front of the area where Obama will speak.
Around 1 p.m. Pacific, the coverage switched to two members of Facebook’s public relations team, who spoke for a few minutes about the coming event. Andrew Noyes, director of public policy communications, along with a very pregnant-looking Marketing Director Randi Zuckerberg — Mark’s sister — explained that two panel discussions coordinated by Facebook would follow the President. The first of these sessions will address women in technology and the second will involve the fostering of startups.
After another brief glimpse of the room where the Town Hall is happening, the cameras switched back to Noyes and Randi, who spoke with two members of Obama’s communications team. They said that this town hall had only two weeks of planning, and apparently that kind of timing is business as usual for the White House’s communications staff.
The communications team is emphasizing that today’s presentations all advance the theme of stimulating the economy through technology. This messaging has a more positive flavor than the anticipated talk about Obama trying to convince the public that tax increases will reduce the deficit. And Facebook’s staff in particular are taking on roles we’re usually accustomed to see from television broadcasters before a live presidential event. And the company’s name is ubiquitous in the coverage.
Jeremy Stoppelman, chief executive officer and cofounder of Yelp is talking to Randi and Noyes at around 1:25 pm Pacific. The latter alludes to Mark Zuckerberg’s recent participation in a Town Hall hosted by Utah’s Senator Orrin Hatch at Brigham Young University, very strategically reminding viewers that Facebook’s CEO has experience that Yelp’s chief doesn’t. Randi’s question for Stoppelman flatters his site, asking for the site’s best restaurant recommendation the president might want to visit.
Now Randi and Noyes are talking about how other politicians have done livestreams on Facebook, including Texas Governor Rick Perry and that state’s U.S. Senator John Cornryn, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and former U.S. President George Bush. They call all of these presentations a build-up to today’s Town Hall with the current President of the U.S.
People are mostly settling into their seats by 1:40 p.m. About a dozen Secret Service agents entered the room from behind a blue curtain at 1:48 p.m. and took seats in the audience. Around 1:50 p.m., several more people, possibly Facebook staff, emerged from behind a curtain on the other side of the room and also seated themselves.
Source: All Facebook
Wednesday, April 20, 2011