But it's inevitable that Zuckerberg has transformed from hostile nerd to nonstop chatterbox. His inane conversation with Oprah and her pals was the same kind of spew that Facebook is enabling through a redesigned homepage, the product of Zuckerberg's strange obsession with the much-smaller Twitter, a messaging service which counts some 6 million users against Facebook's 175 million.

One of those Facebook users is Kirby Bumpus (left), the 22-year-old daughter of Oprah pal Gayle King, who graduated from Stanford last year. King asked Zuckerberg if he'd be "interested." He demurred, saying that he was sure plenty of people would want to date Bumpus, who's also Oprah's goddaughter.

What Zuckerberg was too polite to say on air: Last we heard, he was already taken.

In past interviews, whenever Zuckerberg was greeted by a personal question, he usually returned it with a blank stare. Why are you wasting my time? was the unspoken thought. But Brad Stone reports on Bits that Zuckerberg's parents will be in the audience for tomorrow's broadcast — so it seems like family questions will be on the agenda. This could be the best Oprah trainwreck since Tom Cruise jumped the couch.

Of course, Oprah being Oprah, Oprah will also be on the agenda. She's almost certainly going to plug her new Facebook page, one of the first to adopt an advertising-friendly redesign. So after some awkward banter, we expect the pair will get down to the real business at hand: mutual self-promotion.

(Photoillustration by Richard Blakeley)

Except it won't, really. Because Apple CEO Steve Jobs, unlike Franzen, occasionally acts like a grownup — and always acts like a businessman.

Walmart is planning to start selling two iPhone models around Christmas, according to store employees interviewed by Bloomberg. This is surely the end of the iPhone's upscale brand image, argues scary-smart economist Stephen Dubner in his Freakonomics blog.

There are two problems with that. One, Dubner bases his argument on the rumor that Walmart will sell iPhones for $99, less than half the cheapest price they go for today. Yes, dumping the iPhone at a cheap price will piss off customers who spent a hundred dollars extra at an Apple Store.

But it's not going to happen. Apple is notoriously controlling about prices. And there's no way Jobs is going to put his pricey retail palaces at a disadvantage. Sure, Wal-Mart demands discounts when it can play one supplier against another. But Apple, not Wal-Mart has the advantage here. In the past, when Wal-Mart started selling iPods, it didn't get any special discounts. Bloomberg asked a Walmart employee how much the iPhones would cost. The answer: $199 to $299, just like they do today.

Lots of analysts believe that Apple will eventually sell iPhones for $99. Hardware gets cheaper over time, and AT&T actually pays most of the bill, hoping to make up the subsidy with wireless subscriptions. So sure, Apple might drop the price — but it will drop the price everywhere at once rather than cut Wal-Mart a special deal.

But the Walmart-will-ruin-everything line is a great theory, and one that plays especially well in places like San Francisco and Manhattan, which have many Apple Stores but no Walmarts, and dislike Oprah as much as they love their iPhones. Points to Dubner for combining so many cultural touchstones in a single post. Wish we'd thought of it first!

(Photos via nayrb7 and ILoveMyPiccolo via Freakonomics)

Seriously, if anyone can make a YouTube channel work, it's Winfrey. Her show grabs 5 million viewers a day, and presumably some of them have computers. On the other hand, her past Web performance does not bode well for the venture. The last Oprah foray onto the web was the Oxygen cable-net/website which imploded and was sold off to NBC Universal, long after Winfrey had backed out of the venture.

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So he's down there, upsetting the whole schedule. Apparently, when he donated $11 million, he thought he was buying the place.

But he won't give any press access. He and Oprah won't even talk to the school paper. Security guards turned the student reporters away. Guess he's really afraid of the press.

Winfrey, Gates tape at San Diego High, with media at bay [San Diego Union-Tribune]