MattCreamer.com

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Facebook’s quarterlifish founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is looking for someone closer to the end of life to help him run a company that’s had something of a fall from grace of late. I’ve been thinking this is a fantastic idea at least since the “60 Minutes” segment on Zuckerberg last month. The dude might be a sort-of genius, but he’s flat-out terrible with the media, even journos that basically want to love him because the tale of wunderkind CEO is about the easiest business story in the world to tell.

The big problem with his approach to interviews is that he comes off like he’s running Blackwater rather than a company that’s predicated on connecting people and basically having fun. I’m sure developments like the lawsuit over the origin of the company and the absolute debacle that was the rollout of Beacon have dampened spirits a bit and bred a bit of wariness, but Zuckerberg needs to loosen up. Here’s an example from the rather even-handed “60 Minutes” piece. After Leslie Stahl tossed a softball comment about him replacing the Google founders as les enfants terrible of tech world rather than play along he offered a blank stare and came back with a defensive “Is that a question?” His geeky snippiness comes off horribly on TV.

That doesn’t mean he should install some Richard Bransonesque media slut in the number-two slot. But I do think that someone who can explain the vision of the company without seeming like his nuts are in a vise would help. Facebook’s long-term success is far from a sure thing. No one knows how long the collective consumer attention span is for this kind of thing and there’s even less certainty, in the wake of the Beacon bomb, how the site will monetize. There’s plenty of skepticism about it in the ad world. A work in progress, Facebook needs someone that can give the social network a face that’s, well, at least a little social.

Here’s a link to a Techcrunch post on Facebook traffic flattening.
Here’s part one of the “60 Minutes interview: