He creado la siguiente tabla:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS "events" (
"product.name" VARCHAR(32),
"event.name" VARCHAR(32),
"event.uuid" VARCHAR(32),
CONSTRAINT pk PRIMARY KEY ("event.uuid")
)

Insertar un evento:

upsert into "events" ("event.uuid", "event.name", "product.name") values('1', 'click', 'api')

Obteniendo datos del shell HBase:

hbase(main):020:0> scan 'events'
ROW                                                  COLUMN+CELL
 1                                                   column=0:_0, timestamp=1449417795078, value=
 1                                                   column=0:event.name, timestamp=1449417795078, value=click
 1                                                   column=0:product.name, timestamp=1449417795078, value=api
1 row(s) in 0.0200 seconds

Sin columna familiar ;-(

Desde el shell de HBase, intentando insertar datos:

hbase(main):021:0> put 'events', '2', 'event:name','buy'

ERROR: Unknown column family! Valid column names: 0:*

¿Por qué?