The audience at Mark Zuckerberg's most recent keynote speech at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress started either heckling, falling asleep, or leaving. Zuckerberg let carrier partners chat with each other on stage, which caused negative responses from the audience.
This year the top speakers of the event were two Americans. They included Zuckerberg and Tom Wheeler, the FCC chief.
The objective of the event is to praise Europe's critical role in the birth of the mobile industry. This year over 85,000 people attended the four-day event in Spain, according to Bloomberg.
It was somewhat ironic that Zuckerberg's speech was about Internet.org, and did not mention much about Facebook, the world's largest social media network.
The audience seemed to be more interested in hearing Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, talk. He is arguably interesting due to factors such as his vision, intelligence, and wealth.
The carrier partners mostly discussed issues that seemed to be as interesting as simultaneously watching paint dry and grass grow. The topics of "interest" included financial matters and technical details.
This type of talk they had is commonly known as an "operator love-in," according to Bustle. Usually the carriers focus more on admiring g each other than listening to the audience.
Zuckerberg began his speech by giving praises to the mobile carrier business. He mentioned that it has a "sense of mission."
However, the audience seemed disappointed after waiting in line for hours to hear Zuckerberg speak. They had also waited a year for his talk to a worldwide audience, yet as one audience member Tweeted, Zuckerberg and the operators were talking without "saying anything."