Eric Schmidt didn’t mince words at the D9: All Things Digital conference yesterday, admitting that Google “screwed up” at times during its early social media efforts. Missing out on “the friend thing” and true social functionality was one of his biggest failures, Schmidt admitted during his keynote interview. "In the online world you need to know who you are dealing with," he said. “I clearly knew that I had to do something and I failed to do it." More from his address, via the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Mashable: