Tech Night at The Commonwealth Club Is the Talk of the Town

Photo above: Michael Arrington (left) engages author David Kirkpatrick in discussion about The Facebook Effect. Photo below: Peter Norvig (left) and Nicholas Carr talk Google and intelligence. Photos by Steven Bowles.

On Wednesday, June 23, The Commonwealth Club hosted a double header event featuring inside looks at the most talked-about online trends of today.

The evening kicked off with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington interviewing David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect; Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff introduced the program. After a reception, Nicholas Carr took the stage to talk with Google's director of research, Peter Norvig. Carr wrote the famous Atlantic cover story "Is Google Making Us Stupid."

The reports in print, blogs, and more continue to come in. Caitlin Donohue chimes in at San Francisco Bay Guardian with her article, "Gotta be smarter than the Internet: Commonwealth Club hosts a techie throwdown." Blogs were all over the map (and they wouldn't be blogs if they weren't, now would they?), from positive to negative. But perhaps befitting the subject matter, the most animated discussions have been in the social media realm of Twitter and Facebook.

We posted the video (here and here) last week. Leave a comment about with your thoughts about the speakers, the topics, and the program.

Video: David Kirkpatrick on The Facebook Effect

In the first half of a technology-themed double-header evening two days ago, The Commonwealth Club hosted author David Kirkpatrick discussing his book The Facebook Effect. Introduced by Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, the sold-out event gave attendees some behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most talked-about social media companies today.