MODERATOR: David Kirpatrick from Fortune

PANELISTS:
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs (SecondLife)
Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience, Google
Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

Question 1: Zuckerberg
Thoughts on F8 Platform
"Most natural way for people to communicate is through their friends and their connections, their "social graph". We don't think we're building that, it exists in the world. We are allowing the world to map it out. We want to allow anyone to develop an application on top of the social graph that we built. We wanted to become a platform. We wanted to build something people would feel comfortable building on top op. There is a large amount of trust required to do that. We are going to give you the same tools we give ourselves. It has grown faster than expected. There are more than 20 applications that have more than 1 million users. 2/3rd of our users have added an application. The results were greater than our expectations. Platform might be an overused term. We just want people to be able to create applications. Building a platform is the essence of being a technology company. Allow people to build things on top of you.

ROSEDALE FROM SECOND LIFE
I previously thought a platform was a bunch of wooden boards. Platforms allow companies to reduce the time and costs of development. Platforms allow us to do online what we can do in the real world, extremely fast. Platforms win when they build exponentially. Second Life wanted to simulate the world in a lifelike way. Business leaders are naturally protective of their intellectual property. Ebay is a great example where certain types of platforms have the property that once you use them you can get off them. A smart company can use this opportunity to open themselves up. We recognize that more platforms have network effects and exponential growth possibilities. If this is true, then you can take your hands off some regulatory handles. You can be more open than you think you can--and if you are you will profit more. People's perspective in 2002 said that if you do it in an open unrestrictive context people would hate it. We waited, and it took off.

MARC BENIOFF
What is exciting about this panel is that there is a tremendous door that has opened for all of us. We are able to create platforms on the internet. The internet is the new OS. It is creating communities of innovation that are attracting development. This is a whole new chapter in our industry--the emergence of an Internet Operating System. None of these companies are ties to Microsoft or that Vista stuff. It's a new door for innovation.

That is the power of the platform. It's not about our companies' success, it's about changing the way people interact online. There is an innovation platform and an economic platform. The companies that don't end up with ecosystems, that never make the leap from killer app to platform. Like Siebel never made the leap. SAP did work hard to do this with Netweaver. If you don't make that leap, you don't become a major player. We talk about APIs, logic running on the service. You look at what made Oracle a killer app was in 1990 when we introduced the ability to have logic running on our servers and a customizable UI. Your own customizable scheme and sharing model, user roles, and work flow. All of these things together make a killer platform. We did not invent these things, but are redefining those old technologies models to show what they mean in this new world of Internet platforms. People forget that Windows used to be an application on DOS. Windows became a platform over time. Once you get a company's data- your contacts, accounts, opportunities and meta data--friends' names, your network, how things are interrelated, your business processes, it prevents switching. Why are so many people still on the IBM mainfame? It's not because mainframes are exciting, it's because the company's metadata is not movable off the IBM mainframes. They are sustainable because they are ecosystems--not just because they hold the data, but the metadata.

ROSEDALE
You couldn't build a business on notes. YOU ARE A PLATFORM WHEN YOU CAN BUILD A BUSINESS ON TOP OF YOU. In SecondLife we have 40,000 people who are making a profit on our service.

MAYER
Platforms often happen naturally in technology companies. You have to make it easy for your employees to build your software--so why not open it up since all the great developers in the world don't work for you. We have ads for search, then had ads for content, allowing more information to be profitably brought online. Smaller things have been successful like Google Maps. Before we released we had people trying to look at the AJAX calls and map Craigslist on top of it. We now have 10,000 developers, working essentially for free, and tens of thousands of gadgets. Google Gears makes it easier to develop AJAX applications. It allows you to utilize Google Reader and Gmail without having an internet connection. You cache the application.

ZUCKERBERG
It's funny to talk about platforms. I agree with Marc's point. Opening things up allow more people to innovate on top. But you have to have a great app at the core.

BENIOFF
You're able to extend a great app and get more users. They got a 25,000 user contract with Merrill Lynch because of what Thompson and DowJones created that just happened to be built on our platform (AppExchange). Platforms get you into more hands, and with more capability.

ROSEDALE
The Internet is human scale--or will get there.

ZUCKERBERG
Things trend toward more openness. You get there by providing the tools for privacy and tools for openness. When you're the dominant player you don't want people to innovate. I remind people that I'm 23, we're going to be around and doing this for a long time.

KIRPATRICK: Is Facebook the new AOL?

ZUCKERBERG
It's still early. It was open at one college and now it's open to everyone. But we haven't translated the site. We have many more tools we can provide to developers.

MAYER
I agree that things trend toward openness. The strength of the internet is distribution. If you want the information to be public you want it to be found through a search mechanism.

QUESTION FROM ESTHER DYSON
There is tension between the platforms and the users. Where does data ownership come in?

ZUCKERBERG
Not that difficult of a question. Just give them controls.

DYSON
So if I didn't like it I could put my friends on LinkedIn?

ZUCKERBERG
Yes, you could. Many applications will have both a Facebook version if they'd like and a non-Facebook version.

ROSEDALE
There is a project in Africa on SecondLife. MacArthur Fund is beginning to work with us to see if we can help create jobs in Africa using SecondLife.

BENIOFF
This is going to be one of the key advantages of the internet. We make Salesforce free for non-profits, NGOs, and microfinance orgs around the world. The UN Food Program used Salesforce for the Tsunami relief efforts. Software as a service is great for the developing world because it doesn't require the huge IT investments in servers.