Live Blog: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg live from London

Tucked quietly away at the edges of East London the Future of Web Applications conference has been going on for the past two days. Kevin Rose, off of Digg, opened the show (he’ll also be back for an encore performance of Diggnation Live, shortly) and closing the event will be none other than Facebook founder and twenty four year old gazillionair Mark Zuckerberg.

And we’re going to be right here. In the front row (or at least, we would have been had we not been sitting in the wrong room for an hour before running over here) bringing you his every word. Or every other one at the very least. The show kicks off at 17:20, so come back then for live updates as they happen. Hurrah.

17:58

Nope, that really is it. He’s off, probably to go and count all his money one more time. That’s all folks.

17:57

We’re out of time. Questions?

17:56

Last question: what advice would you give to a developer trying to move from building the site, to running a company? Mark says it’s all about having the right people around you. He still programs bits on the site - FOR FUN! - but the key is extracting yourself over time.

17:54

Q: Where will FB be in two years time? Mobile is where it’s all going according to Mark. The BlackBerry app has been downloaded two million times, and that just shows the power of the FB platform to add extra functionality.

17:53

We’re talking APIs (for the devs, again). There are a million things they want to do with FB, and offering more APIs so people can get data out is on that list. It will definitely happen, just can’t say when.

17:52

Mark has tried to keep Facebook as small as possible, while still be able to grow the site. He thinks of FB as a technical company, not a media company.

17:50

Mark: The cloud computing platforms at the mo probably aren’t powerful enough to run Facebook, but you could still start a good app and by the time you need that scale, it would probably be there.

17:48

A lot of FB employees are there to try and scale the service - which currently runs on… TEN THOUSAND MACHINES. Wow.

17:46

Best quote so far: When I built Facebook four years ago…

17:45

We’re on entrepreneurs and burn out now. Conclusion: you have to live this thing to make it work. All Facebook employees are obsessed with trying to help people share things about themselves, more easily.

17:43

Mark: the best open systems started off closed. For Windows to happen (the open one) Apple had to be there first with its (totally closed, don’t even try and peak behind the curtain) system first.

17:42

We’ve moved onto open systems verses closed (there are a *lot* of developers here. And beards too, coincidence?). Mark isn’t ruling out opening up Facebook - and he’s in favour of moving towards it. Or at least looking in the right direction. Also, hard core devs love Facebook’s tools over the competition. Apparently.

17:40

People that used to use all the privacy settings are getting more relaxed and carey sharey. We should all have a hug or something.

17:38

At Facebook they think about Moore’s law a lot. It’s not an actual law, it’s just an observation, but hey ho. Mark says it can be applied to the rate of sharing and how much info people are willing to put out there. And he knows a thing or two about this social game.

17:36

Facebook won’t be connecting to your bank any time soon. Phew, thanks Mark. It will help you connect with others, though. A lot.

17:34

Man in hat has just asked if they could connect Facebook to his bank account. He’s either very trusting or completely insane. Maybe both. It’s a pretty silly hat.

17:34

We’re onto the (controversial) redesign, in a round about way. Mark brought it up. It’s all about the feed now, not boxes on profiles. Apps should be trying to get relevant info into user’s feeds, not just put a big box on the profile.

17:30

Mark: Facebook Connect is in beta at the mo, but based on the take up of the Facebook Apps platform he’s really excited (he’s not physicially showing it, but you can hear it in his voice. Just.) about what external developers will be able to do with it.

17:28

A man in a hat (there are a lot of those here) is asking Zuckerberg - let’s call him Mark, it’s quicker to type - about Facebook Connect.

Update: just found out the man in the hat was Ryan Carson, who actually set up the whole event. And invited us here. Hi Ryan! Love the hat. We were thinking of a totally different hat. You should have SEEN that one. Whew.

17:27

Okay, he’s here. Throwing dollar bills into the audience. Not really. But he is here.

17:20

Yep. Late. Tsk.

17:19

No sign of Zuckerberg or his millions just yet. The people on stage are talking (on and on) about web apps. Hmm, they may well overrun…

17:05

Stay tuned. Mark Zuckerberg will be here soon. Promise. We can almost smell him, he’s so close.

Out now | Future of Web Applications