Mark Zuckerberg Hates His New Facebook Privacy Policy, Too

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 Heckling Rampage By Kara Swisher

As co-host of the Wall Street Journal's $5,000/head D conference, reporter Kara Swisher demands best behavior from her guests. Invite her to your startup, though, and she'll taunt your chef, heckle bizdev and mock your taste. More »

Only millennials get Random Play on Facebook

If you were over 30 years old when you signed up for Facebook, you never got the option to look for "Random Play" — that's what the "kids" are calling it now. Sheryl Sandberg's new No Fun regime at Facebook has taken it a step further: They've removed the Random Play option from some people, including me, who'd already checked it. Now all users' inner sluts have been caged, at least as far as the interface is concerned. More »

At OutCast CEO Dinner, Robert Scoble greeted us warmly

FERRY BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO — Let's be clear: Local PR firm OutCast's CEO Dinner event Thursday night wasn't really a dinner — most people ate standing up. Nor were there many CEOs. (I counted one: Jim Louderback of Revision3.) It's a far cry from years past where the decimated post-bubble survivors of San Francisco's tech press corps would gather in a room and listen to OutCast clients like Gordon Eubanks of Oblix, a salty former submarine officer, utter zingers about the wonders of Viagra. OutCast is a sizable firm now, and it's got big clients like Facebook and Yahoo. But Mark Zuckerberg? Jerry Yang? Nowhere to be seen. Instead, you had a hall full of hacks and flacks. I wonder how many of them shook videoblogger Robert Scoble's hand? Photo gallery after the jump: More »

Facebook's foolish foes

I remember, distinctly, when former Business 2.0 editor Josh Quittner's love affair with Facebook began this spring. He couldn't stop talking about it, and I could hardly avoid hearing about it, since my office was next door to his. With all the zeal of a late convert, Quittner evangelized Facebook for most of this year — and now, feeling betrayed by Facebook's Beacon ads, he has attacked them with all the betrayed fury of a new apostate. Facebook is dead — to him, at any rate. Quittner's fickle rage perfectly captures the Silicon Valley hype cycle, and the press's complicity in it. Having built up Facebook, Quittner and his fellow reporters must, inevitably tear it down. But in this latest episode, it's Facebook's critics, not Facebook, who have jumped the shark. More »

Fake blogger lands real Zuckerberg interview

An anonymous reader writes:

I read [object of inexplicable Valleywag obsession Robert] Scoble's post where he said he'd give Facebook lots of time on his blog, "But they only seem interested in talking to big-brand journalists and I'm not interested enough to pull out my Fast Company business cards to get them to pay attention." Oh come on, Fast Company? Would Facebook really talk to Scoble for Fast Company? I created a Robert Scoble email account and wrote Facebook asking for an interview. Imagine my shock when they said yes! Screenshot attached. What do I do now?

You know what really hurts about this? More »

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