Steve Jobs isn't on Facebook. Now his wife has disappeared from the site. A few days ago, we posted about Laurene Powell-Jobs's Facebook page, and her curious membership in the Apple network, normally restricted to employees. Today, it has disappeared from view entirely. It's not visible to anyone searching for her name or from within the Apple network, to which she belongs.
Mark Zuckerberg wants to hire a well-known executive to help him run Facebook, BoomTown reports. It's like when Google founders Brin and Page hired a then-obscure Eric Schmidt away from Novell, except Zuckerberg wants to keep the CEO title. "It has to be someone who does not overshadow Mark," a source told BoomTown, "But also someone who can challenge him when he needs challenging."
Both MySpace and Facebook lost five percent of their traffic from December to January. Nielsen Online says Facebook lost 400,000 U.K. site visitors after 17 straight months of growth. "Most of the leading social networks are less popular in the U.K. than they were a year ago. It was inevitable that early growth rates couldn't be sustained and the larger networks have been plateauing over the last few months." (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)
All the parts of the internet that care about such matters have been speculating as to what Saturday Night Live will do about Barack Obama. They don't really have anyone qualified to impersonate him right now, especially as blackface is more or less out of style. A couple sites have reported rumors that sketch comedian and comedy writer (and thin black man) Donald Glover will join the cast, possibly even this weekend, in order to ensure that the Democratic hopeful will be properly parodied. Comedy Central's Insider blog has the story and the Chicago Sun-Times thinks it's a done deal. But! We went to school with Donald! He, like us, was in NYU's Dramatic Writing program. So we checked Facebook and learned, direct from Donald, that all of this speculation is unfounded. Donald auditioned, but hasn't been asked to join the cast. His wall message (of hope) is attached, click to enlarge.
Here's a chart which records traffic to Facebook's privacy-settings page. What does that indicate? It shows just how little Facebook users seemed to notice the whole Beacon controversy. AllFacebook, which put together the chart using Compete.com, says the chart is evidence that users need better privacy education. We say users are just ready for a brave new world.
Owen Van Natta reluctantly left Amazon.com to become Facebook's COO in 2005. What he really wanted was a CEO gig. And so after three years and a demotion, Van Natta left Facebook yesterday in order to become CEO somewhere, anywhere. Well, Mr. Van Natta, boy are you going to owe us. Here's a note we received from a Valleywag reader that's going to make your day.
Laurene Powell-Jobs, Steve Jobs's wife, is in the Apple network on Facebook. Isn't that for Apple employees only? To join an employer's Facebook network, users must have an approved email address. Only those whose addresses ends in @apple.com can join the Apple network. As far as we can determine, Powell-Jobs does not hold a position at Apple. If she did, Apple would certainly have to disclose it in SEC filings. So what is she doing in the Apple Facebook group? Her full Facebook profile is below.
Failed social networking entrepreneur Mark Pincus, the force that brought the Internet both Tribe.net and Acebucks, now hopes to dominate the Facebook application market with his new casual games company Zynga. He claims he hasn't touched his $10 million in VC funding because he's in the lucrative business of selling application referrals within Zynga's Facebook games — a pyramid scheme if there ever was one.
Once Mark Zuckerberg's right-hand man, Owen Van Natta is leaving Facebook in a couple of weeks. Van Natta, who openly aspired to be CEO — of Facebook or another company — was demoted from COO to vice president of revenue operations last summer. While he downplayed it at the time, it was a clear signal Van Natta was getting no closer to the executive suite. One question: Will Facebook buy back Van Natta's shares at the company's $15 billion valuation? Private companies sometimes do that for departing executives. Whether Facebook extends that lucrative courtesy to Van Natta will be the best indicator of ator of how friendly his departure was.
Writer and publicist Sloane Crosley (the subject of this recent Observer profile), is wondering to her Facebook friends "why it's physically impossible to send a typo-free e-mail to [fiction writer] Lorrie Moore." (Meanwhile, I'm wondering why it's physically impossible for me to write a typo-free blogpost.)
British jihadi Abu Izzadeen faces charges of financing terrorism and inciting terrorism overseas. But before his arrest, Izzadeen led a radical jihadist group called Al Muhajiroun. Like many shadowy organizations with suspicious aims, Al Muhajiroun made a Facebook group its home on the Web. That is, until Facebook administrators banned it. Izzadeen immediately protested the decision, according to the Edinburgh Journal. Izzadeen encountered a force more powerful than militant Islam: Facebook's radically indifferent customer service.
With just one click, Facebook users can show how much they care. Hours after the shooting at Northern Illinois University, there is a Facebook group with more than 5,500 members called "Pray for Northern Illinois University Students and Families." While you're at it, join "If This Group Reaches One Million Members Genocide in Sudan Will End." Working for peace has never been easier.
Click to viewA tipster is friends with Bill Gates's Facebook profile — the one Gates claims to have stopped using. The skinny on the Microsoft cofounder: "The friends list is short (110 friends) and yes, there are a bunch of teenagers on it BUT all key internal people that I know work with him closely are friends with that profile." On the list:
Kinky but reliable io9 editor Annalee Newitz, in her latest column for the communists at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, confesses her contempt for Facebook. Our dark media overlords at Gawker force us to use Zuckerberg's creation to stay in touch, so I feel her pain. I whacked Annalee's 723-word fumefest down to the naughty bits.
The public story is that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has quit Facebook "after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a day, and [spotting] weird fan sites about him." We don't doubt it, but a tipster tells us that BillG has a secret profile only visible from within Facebook's Microsoft network. Surely some Microsoftie Valleywag readers are friends with him. Do tell: Are there frenzied poking wars in Redmond's C-suite? Message us.
The number of people visiting social networks continues to rise, but the rate at which these visitors return to sites like MySpace and Facebook is on the decline. According to ComScore, the average visits per visitor to MySpace are down 11.6 percent year-over-year. To Facebook they're down 12.3 percent. To social networks in general, they're down 1.8 percent. The numbers suggest social networks aren't as crucial to their users' lives anymore. And they've never been critical to advertisers. As few as 4 in 10,000 people who see ads on social networking sites click on them. As good a time as any for Rupert Murdoch to dump MySpace in Jerry Yang's lap.
