Sarah Lacy - Mob Rools OK

On Sunday night I was watching the Twitterati v-burn Sarah Lacy, but when I read the actual interview notes I felt they had been a tad unfair, and I noted it was a virtually public lynching. So now I have actually watched the video, and for the life of me I can't see (i) what the hoo-ha was all about and (ii) where the supposed mass riot comes from.

My take - sure Sarah Lacy (who I don't know from Adam by the way) seems to have a huuuge...ego, and should not have pimped her book - thats just plain rude - but then she is far from the only one on that game, and this is far from the first sycophantic and rambling interviewer I've ever seen.

To quote TechCrunch (where I watched the video):

Here’s what I think really happened. There was an unruly group of attendees, mostly at the back of the session, who heckled Lacy (and Zuckerberg) during the interview. A few others joined in as well at different points. The heckling drew Twitters saying that some people weren’t happy with the interview. And then those Twitters spawned new ones, trying to outdo the previous ones. And then the “real journalists” jumped in head first and laid into Lacy, safe in the knowledge that they had Twitter messages to back them up.

What in the world drove these “journalists” to write this nonsense? Jealously over the fact that they weren’t on stage, or over Lacy’s new book? Perhaps they just got caught up in the fun of a witch burning. But whatever drove them to write those articles, it certainly wasn’t journalism. Nor was it professional. And, worst of all, it wasn’t accurate.

In fact, as far as I can see, she committed a major faux pas mainly because she did a more business flavoured interview in a room of geeks, and - shock horror - flirted !! And in front of geeks - what were you thinking, woman

Of course, the Facebook Fanboi's are still reeling at the sh(l)ock of seeing Their Hero exposed a bit ......

To me the real lesson is that Twitter flipped from being a Wisdom of Crowds thing to being a vector for a "Madness of Crowds" (aka Mob Rool) thing - and as any student of history knows, this is a Bad Thing, especially when whipped on by demagogues, tyrants, rascals and other A-listers . Its at times like this that great miscarriages of justice and judgement are made.

This was then accelerated by the crowdstorm nature of Techmeme - or rather by the clamp on of those who came most definitely to bury La Lacy (and in the process get themselves a prize shot at interviewing Mr Zuckerberg - surely not?).

Its an early lesson methinks of the inherent risks of "instant" media.

Update - Don't cry too much for Sarah, the PR cover-over is now in full swing....