Chris Leach, the CEO of Pwned.com, describes his company as "the worlds first social networking website dedicated to videogamers that launched in December," distinguishing it from the first social networking websites dedicated to videogramers which launched in November or January. With credentials established, Leach…

Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong telecom billionaire, has upped his stake in Facebook, investing another $60 million in the social network. His new total: $120 million, or half of Microsoft's stake. The valuation: Still $15 billion. All the cash flowing into Facebook has gotten some Facebookers thinking about selling. CEO…

Canadian Byron Ng found a way around Facebook privacy safeguards and forwarded pictures of Paris Hilton's brother drinking beer to the Associated Press. How'd he do it? As we reported in January, Facebook doesn't provide much security for its users' photos. With the right URL, anyone can see any photo, whether its…

As congratulations rain down on new Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, her predecessor, Owen Van Natta, is left under a cloud. Van Natta left Amazon.com for Facebook when it was barely out of an Ivy League dorm, and turned it into a company with plans to take over the world. Then he got demoted. Then he abruptly left. Why?…

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…

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…

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…

You probably didn't watch the video. So you might have missed the part where Owen Van Natta, Facebook's chief operating officer, told Kara Swisher that users will be able to opt out of the site's new Social Ads and Beacon ad network:

Speaking at a conference over the weekend, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe reportedly asked Facebook to join Google's OpenSocial initiative. Facebook COO Owen Van Natta politely rejected the idea. He said Facebook's developer platform protects user privacy better than the open standard.

Put down the Viking helmet and champagne, Facebook founders. There's actually a downside to that $15 billion valuation. Facebook plans to double its workforce from 350 to 700 in the next year, but that might be difficult, the Wall Street Journal argues. Why? Because the high valuation raises the value of stock…

Founders never share power willingly, gracefully, or for very long. That's a lesson that Facebook's Owen Van Natta should have learned at the knee of Jeff Bezos, when Van Natta was an executive at Amazon.com. Instead, though, he's been schooled in it by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who just demoted Van Natta from COO…

The moguls wandering through Sun Valley, Idaho, in the hopes of running into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, will be sorely disappointed. Contrary to reports, he's not attending the conference, appearing instead at Fortune's iMeme conference in San Francisco. Sun Valley will have to settle for Facebook COO Owen Van…