By Megan McCarthy and Michael Calore

AUSTIN, Texas – They came expecting a civilized, one-on-one discussion, but they got what some attendees described as "a train wreck."

Ballroom A of the Austin Convention Center was packed to capacity Sunday evening for an hour-long interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the keynote speaker at this year's South by Southwest Interactive festival. The 23-year-old billionaire founder of the social networking site was interviewed on stage by author and journalist Sarah Lacy. Using her unique, friendly style of interviewing – closer to two friends chatting than a straight question-and-answer session – Lacy tried to get the notoriously tight-lipped Zuckerberg to open up. But the discussion rarely strayed beyond the usual business fare and eventually descended into a string of awkward moments punctuated by the audience's heckling.

"Talk about something interesting," one attendee yelled about halfway through the keynote. The remark was met with waves of cheering and applause.

Meanwhile, members of the audience participated in a back-channel discussion on Twitter, with users of the microblogging site directing most of their animosity at Lacy's unorthodox interview technique.

"Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview," said Jason Pontin on Twitter. "Poor girl, flirtatiously awful tho' she was."

A quick search for "Zuckerberg" on Twitter search service Tweetscan reveals hundreds of posts written by those who witnessed the disastrous interview.



After some more shouted remarks, Lacy turned the microphones over to the members of the audience, challenging them to come up with better questions. Attendees rushed to the microphones and got right to it, asking Zuckerberg about privacy and data portability, and requesting tools to help manage the growing flood of information on their Facebook profiles.

Blogger Robert Scoble offered his observations over Twitter: "The audience is asking Zuckerburg better questions than Lacy did."

Her attempt at a friendly interview derailed, Lacy retreated to the role of moderator.

At least one heckler thought the backlash was because of Lacy's gender instead of her questions. MyBlogLog founder Eric Marcoullier, who twittered a few swipes against Lacy during the talk, told Wired.com after the keynote that Lacy's gender might have been behind the reaction of the geeky masses.

"I think there's some degree of sexism," he said. "Because she's a chick, her ingratiating nature is taken as ass-kissing. If it were some guy at Forbes asking the same questions in the same manner, we just would have thought he was drawing Mark out."

There were some eye-opening moments during the talk, like when Zuckerberg addressed the issue of Beacon, Facebook's advertising platform that launched to much controversy when media outlets decried it as an invasion of privacy. "We probably got a little ahead of ourselves," Zuckerberg admitted. He talked about Yahoo's bid for Facebook, confirming publicly for the first time the $1 billion offer price. Zuckerberg also touched on Microsoft's investment in his company and fielded questions about the site's application platform.

Zuckerberg largely stuck to the same script throughout the interview, repeating the same phrases multiple times and falling back on platitudes – often to comical effect. Switching gears, Lacy began telling stories about Zuckerberg (more than a few of which alluded to her book, which will be published later this year) in an attempt to get him to loosen up.

"You're supposed to ask questions," he said. The audience erupted in a sustained cheer as Lacy tried in vain to quiet the mob.

After the interview, Lacy vented her frustration on her own post to Twitter.

"Seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things," she said.

Conference attendees were still buzzing about the free-for-all keynote hours later.

"It was the most brilliant thing ever," a young man said after describing the scene to a friend on his mobile phone. He continued to chuckle as he walked into a panel discussion, appropriately enough, about internet gossip.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired

See also: