Google Invented a New Facebook-Type Thing

Google Buzz is like Facebook, except built in to Google's GMail and automatically hooked up to your best email and chat buddies. You can share links, videos, photos and opinions. What could possibly go wrong? (Pic via)

Zuckerberg's Sleepy Pants Inspire Timberlake's Swear-Finger Happy Dance

New pictures from the Facebook movie's set have none other than script-originating novelist Ben Mezrich uncertain how he feels. With clips from corresponding portions of the script, we decipher Mark Zuckerberg's sleepy-time befuddlement and Timberlake's alpha male "fuck you." More »

Facebook CEO's Sister Wants To Be a Pop Star

Randi Zuckerberg insists this was a "spontaneous" performance of George Gershwin's "Summertime" at a digital lifetsyle conference in Germany. We think the camera-loving Facebook fameball doth protest too much. More »

Ricky Gervais Freaked Out by Facebook's Celebrity Campaign

Twitter has become a magnet for Hollywood celebrities, which explains why Facebook's clearly jealous flacks were conducting interviews on the Golden Globe red carpet last night. Next step: Convincing stars like Ricky Gervais that users are worth the trouble. More »

Lust for Another Bubble Leads to IPO Porn

The hottest fantasy in Silicon Valley involves a big, hot... tech bubble. Facebook and Yelp supposedly want one, so they can IPO in 2010; even Penthouse publisher FriendFinder Networks wants to go public, despite a sex harassment scandal. More »

Why You Shouldn't Trust Facebook with Your Data: An Employee's Revelations

The abuse of private data by Facebook employees was pretty much inevitable; the simple act of amassing data tends to lead to corruption. What's sad is how lightly the social network reportedly controls its employees. More »

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on Your Erased Privacy: 'These are the Social Norms, Now.'

This is fun. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a cameo onstage at the 2010 TechCrunch awards—or "The Crunchies"—yesterday and had a nice little chat with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. And—typically—sketchy things about privacy were noted. More »

The attached picture, of a Facebook playboy's sweethearted proposal to his Googler girlfriend, did not come cheap: It was shot in a private air taxi above the Maldives, a remote haven for wealthy tourists. Dave Morin has struck again. More »

How Silicon Valley Rationalizes Its Scammy Profit Center

It's hard to say what's more pathetic: That the social networks at the center of Silicon Valley's growth derive so much money from online scams, or the way one venture capitalist excuses the whole sad scene. More »

Making Facebook Pay

Facebook doubtlessly hoped forcing open user profiles would help the social network compete more profitably with open systems like Twitter. But there could well be a multi-million-dollar price to pay for the aggressive change, particularly if Facebook broke the law. More »

The Facebook Privacy Settings You've Lost Forever

While covering Facebook's systematic elimination of privacy, we've been deluged with questions from readers asking how to restore certain Facebook privacy protections. Sadly, many such settings appear to be lost forever. Here are the most glaring examples. More »

Alisher Usmanov: The Scary Russian Oligarch Seducing Silicon Valley

Alisher Usmanov is nicknamed "the hard man of Russia," but he's good at seducing the softies in California's tech community: An investment firm he backs lead a $180 million investment in Zynga, the gaming company that trafficked in scammy ads. More »

Blocked on Facebook: Gawker Facebook Privacy Guide

A reader sent in the attached screenshot, showing his fruitless attempt to post our guide to enhancing the privacy of your Facebook account. Apparently Facebook found that content to be "abusive." More »

The Valleywag Guide to Restoring Your Privacy on Facebook

Facebook's privacy rollback is especially terrible because it's so hard to reverse. Settings are so bewildering that even CEO Mark Zuckeberg has fiddled his two-to-three times this month. So here's a guide to re-privatizing your profile. More »

Facebook's Great Betrayal

Facebook's privacy pullback isn't just outrageous; it's a landmark turning point for the social network. Facebook has blundered before, but the latest changes are far more calculated. The company has, in short, turned evil. More »

Facebookarazzi: Stalking Celebrities Just Got a Whole Lot Easier

The implications of Facebook's recent privacy rollback will likely take months to reveal themselves. But it's already clear they go beyond Mark Zuckerberg's stash of intimate pics; we're already starting to learn new things about Hollywood celebrities. More »

Facebook's CEO has urged his users to carefully review the new "privacy" settings pushed on them by his social network. He should have taken his own advice: He's apparently locked down his photos since we rifled through them last night. More »

Facebook controversially forced profile pictures into public and pushed users to share candids with the whole world. So now we're blessed with pics of the social network's young CEO shirtless, romantic, clutching a teddy bear, and looking plastered. More »