Zuckerberg admits that flotation left egg on his Facebook

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg spoke candidly about the isues faced by Facebook: namely, the challenge of generating more mobile ad revenue. 'Literally, six months ago we didn't have an ad on mobile,' he said, conceding that Facebook was rather late to the party. 'Ads have to be more integrated into the product.'

On the subject of mobile, Zuckerberg also dispelled rumours that Big Blue is about to launch its own phone. 'If we make a phone we could get maybe 10 million users? Twelve million users? That doesn't move the needle for us,' he said. 'Building a phone is the wrong strategy for us.'

So, more ads, no hardware; those were the twin revelations. And the markets seem satisifed with Zuckerberg's plans for th' Book. Facebook's shares closed 3.3% up last night. And that's despite this little beauty from Zuckerberg: 'Everything I do breaks,' he said, and the crowd held its breath, 'but I fix it quickly,' he finished hastily.

Careful when cracking jokes, son. You don't want to do a Ratner...

This article was first published on managementtoday.co.uk