Ssshhhh, the Winklevoss twins don't want you to know this: The uber-bros recently received $65 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a confidential settlement ending the lawsuit over who really, really started Facebook. But the Brothers Winklevoss aren't satisfied; they want the verdict overturned. Why, you ask? Probably because they were paid largely in Zuckerberg Bucks (a.k.a. Facebook stock). According to Valleywag:

ConnectU's settlement was issued in common shares. And an appraisal Facebook conducted to value the shares it issued to employees valued the company at $3.7 billion, or $8.88 a share — making the stock part of ConnectU's payment only worth $11 million, and the total $31 million.

Only $31 million? Oh, but it gets worse. From Valleywag:

An informal market for Facebook stock exists, though it's not publicly traded. Vulture investors are offering to buy shares for as little as $2.50 apiece. At that price, the company as a whole is worth $1.3 billion. That's less than Yahoo reportedly bid for the company in 2006.

With share price falling, what's a young Zuckerprince to do? After the jump, predictions for Facebook's grim future. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone has those moments where your mom gets a screen name or your high school frenemy pokes you and you think, Man, technology is the worst. Along those lines, did you know that the terrorists use social networking sites too? True story! It appears that Al Qaeda has been distributing training manuals with instructions for would-be terrorists on how to use digital platforms to accomplish their, erm, goals.

Columbia will use any excuse to throw a capital-S Summit, so in a few weeks the Law School will host Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Access 360 Media and the U.S. State Department to discuss the "best ways to use digital media to promote freedom and justice, counter violence, extremism, and oppression":

These young leaders will form a new group, the Alliance of Youth Movements, which will produce a field manual for youth empowerment. The field manual will stand in stark contrast to the Al Qaeda manual on the basics of terrorism, found by Coalition Forces in Iraq... [It] will form the cornerstone of a much larger online “hub,” where emerging youth organizations can access and share “how-to” guides and tips on using social-networking and other technologies to further their causes.

The Howcast press release doesn't provide details on what exactly in the terrorism manual requires an in-kind response, but the forum was specifically inspired by an anti-FARC Facebook group that helped organize millions of Colombians to demonstrate against the guerrilla organization. Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and MSNBC's Luke Russert are scheduled to speak. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember identical twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Harvard '04, the ones who claimed four years ago that Zuckerberg stole Facebook from their original site ConnectU?  Yeah, they're still desperately seeking justice in the form of cash and shares, with ongoing litigation regarding their settlement with Facebook and the value of the stock.  But lately it looks like these suckers are back in the news for another reason.

Only this time Zuckerberg definitely won't be stealing their thunder, or their gold.  The Winklevoss twins will be rowing as a pretty pair in this summer's Beijing Olympics.

Read the rest of this entry »

"The true story of two best friends- geeky outsiders at a prestigious Ivy League University- who wanted nothing more than to get into one of the elite fraternities on campus, so they'd have an easier time getting laid."

Thus poetically begins Ben Mezrich's proposal about creating Facebook with Mark "I Just Want to Help" Zuckerberg as "dorky," fencing-loving, Adidas shower shoes-wearing Harvard undergrads.

Gawker warns,

The book may not be the most rigorously factual account, as Mezrich's Bringing Down The House... was debunked by the Boston Globe as "not a work of 'nonfiction' in any meaningful sense of the word."

Rolling Stone's recent profile of Zuckerberg is a bit more specific about his motivations. Facebook began as so many other brilliant ideas do, with drinking alone on a Tuesday night (ah, college). Recently dumped and feeling bitter, Zuckerberg wrote on his blog, "Jessica A— is a bitch." (Does anyone know who Jessica A. is?) That night, he created Face Mash, a site for students to compare their classmates' pictures with those of farm animals and rank them in terms of attractiveness. Charming! Read the rest of this entry »

We go back and forth on who we support in ConnectU LLC v. Thefacebook, Inc., the lawsuit that alleges Facebook venturetard Mark Zuckerberg stole his billionish-dollar idea from three other Harvard undergrads: bros Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss '04 and Divya Narendra '04. On the one hand, social networking sites, including several pegged to college, were popping up all over the place back then, so it's hard to say Zuckerberg "stole" the "idea" from anyone. And Facebook took off because of its simplicity, not because of any one function that may or may not have been ganked.

On the other hand, the ConnectU guys lay out some pretty scummy facts. They asked Zuckerberg to code a remarkably similar site and made clear that they needed to race to market to succeed. The pasty recluse secretly switched to his own project, while keeping the trio under the illusion he was still toiling away for them. The launch of Facebook caught them flat-footed, and while business is business, we guess, that doesn't seem quite kosher.

Anyway, thanks to a tipster with Lexis, we've looked at some recent court filings in the case. It's a David vs. Goliath situation; to win against zillion-dollar Zuckerberg -- they're alleging fraud, breach of contract, unfair business practices, copyright infringement, etc etc etc -- the Winklevosses and Narendra need to really have their act together. Here's a portion of a Narendra deposition; see if you can spot the difference between this and the "You can't handle the truth!!" scene from "A Few Good Men":

On second thought, maybe it's not so bad Zuck took over.

Dear Mark,

Wow. We believed all those groups that claimed "Facebook Is Watching You," but this is just ... wow.

Two weeks ago, we started a Facebook profile for IvyGate. Sure, we tiptoed around some of the FB bylaws (our last name isn't actually "Blog"; we're not the spitting image of Kaavya Viswanathan),  but for the most part, we were legit. We quietly amassed a pile of friends, we started a group; it was a good life. Then we tried to log on, and found this:

We've tasted the bitter fruit of rejection before. But from you? Is this really the time to be driving people away from Facebook?

See, the problem, Mark, is that you know the power of exclusivity. It's what made you. Without Harvard, you'd be Friendster. But you played it right. You slowly eased the reins, letting in first the other Ivies, then the New England colleges, then the rest, until every student in America recognized your eerie, silkscreened mug peering out from atop their browsers. Now that you've invited everyone into the hot tub, forgive us for saying your inclusivity feels a little ... calculated.

So no, we're not breaking up. We won't let you. We'll be back. And by God, you're the first person we're friending.

Te amo,

IvyGate

P.S. The Wall Street Journal stippleportraitist thinks you're getting fat.

Party's over, kids. The lights are up; the DJ's playing "Closing Time"; you're going home alone again.

With word circulating that Facebook is expanding to the great unwashed, Mark Zuckerberg greets users today with yet another open letter. "Honestly, it shouldn't change much for you," he pleads. (Do you think Mark lies awake at night in his Silicon Valley bachelor pad, composing these in his head?  Or does he just play a lot of HALO?)

Maybe it will, maybe it won't; the point is that Facebook as we know it is dead or dying. We've no doubt that the corporation will actually get bigger and more profitable by expanding -- but it'll feel like a different site. The first (only?) generation of users is already souring, and we, for one, will be humming "Send in the Clowns" as our personal use of the place eventually wanes to zero.

Goodbye, sweet Facebook. You were too beautiful for this world.

EARLIER: Read more of IvyGate's wall-to-wall coverage of Facebookgate

Whatever you may think of him, new Cornell President David J. Skorton has one hell of a PR team. Aww, he's living in a freshman dorm! Gee, he sure can wail on the sax! Golly, he's even got his own ice cream flavor! We were just getting ready to consummate our Skorton-love, with the Right Reverend Zuckerberg presiding (i.e., friend him), when we saw this:  

Now this is just weird. We know students are supposed to welcome the new boss. But to friend him beyond the Facebook-decreed limits for friendship? What happened to rebellion?

Cornell hasn't just drunk Skorton's Kool-Aid; it's been doing keg-stands. Read Skorton's inaugural speech. He squeezed the Cornell experience into some awkward dancing metaphor, concluding, "One alone, a dyad, more, many, a society of dancers are we." Any self-respecting Cornellian, after hearing this, would have run home and filled out a transfer request. The absence of backlash, though, tells us that it may be too late. Golden Boy Skorton has officially brainwashed Cornell, one friend request at a time. IvyGate is now officially skeptical.

The escalating freakout over Facebook's 1984-esque relaunch is so entertaining that it distracts from the larger news going on here: Mark Zuckerberg may have lost several hundred million dollars in the last 24 hours.

Howzat? In March, BusinessWeek reported in a much-noted piece that the Harvard drop-out had turned down a $750 million offer (from Viacom, it later came out), and was holding out for up to $2 billion. We heard -- put however much stake in that as you want -- that Zuckerberg turned down an offer later this summer for $1.5 billion. The guy was a true believer, the reasoning went; he really thinks the project he started in his dorm room could be worth much more than that, change society much more than that. And you know what? Better offers probably were coming along the pike.

Here's the problem: social networking sites are only as valuable as the base of users that support them. Remember Friendster? The site your older siblings and friends absolutely swore by? Today Friendster is hanging out with Natalee Holloway and JonBenet's real killer -- it's gone. And so's its market value. By changing his site so fundamentally, Zuckerberg has alienated a huge chunk of his users. If he were to cash out now, no corporation or investor would offer anything close to $750 million.

Mark's a smart guy. We've no doubt he's doing some hard, hard thinking right now -- deciding between sticking to his vision and listening to his users. He could make some compromises and keep the bulk of the audience. But his idea really only works as a monopoly, if everyone's connected. For now, the longer Facebook v.1984 stays public, the more zeroes Mark Zuckerberg's bank account is gonna lose.