Aaron Sorkin, scribe of fast-paced quips and nervous political banter, might be writing a script about the history of Facebook, according to, um, Facebook. This whole "story" is based around the fact that some guy claiming to work for Aaron Sorkin created a Facebook group early this morning to do "research" on the site.
Sorkin has his own personal message on the board, full of clever one-liners that one would expect for someone who penned Sports Night, and he ends the post by saying "I feel about this introduction the way I felt about Sophie's Choice–It could have been funnier." Ba-dum-dum.
Calling bullshit right now, it's too much a sequel to The Farnsworth Invention, Sorkin's Broadway play about the men who stole the idea for television. Besides, what would a movie about Facebook be about? Mark Zuckerberg writing in his blog and calling people bitches would be hard to translate to film.
While MySpace lays the groundwork to become the next Friendster — read: over — all the kiddies are running to Facebook. Perhaps this explains why Fox News, the right-wing television channel from the media company News Corp., has decided to latch on to Facebook, rather than MySpace, which News Corp. paid more than a half billion dollars to buy. This is good news for College Republicans, bad news for Tila Tequila.
Koobface is not the latest thingamajig in the arsenal of objects you can throw at other Facebook users. Instead, Koobface is a set of two new computer worms (like viruses, but more interested in spawning than infecting) that are spreading themselves all around Facebook and its lesser predecessor MySpace through the sites' comments sections. Users are tricked into involuntary computer infections when they click on links titled "Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf On The Street," which might've been a headline on TMZ but is actually a nefarious attempt to get people to download a video player "patch." And if you upgraded to the "new" Facebook, you probably deserve it. [D'Technology]
"Insiders at Facebook are selling stock in the social networking company, and the prices they're getting for their shares suggest the sky-high valuation backers once placed on the company may prove unrealistic." [BW]
Responsible for wasting millions (total guess) of employer hours every year, Facebook game Scrabulous has been taken offline. But just for U.S. and Canadian users! The move wasn't entirely unexpected, given corporate gaming behemoth Hasbro's disapproving stance on the hijacking of its trademarked game by scores of Internet types who think everything should be free. Likely, Hasbro will introduce an "official" version of Scrabble for Facebook, and it'll suck only 5X worse. [ABC]
Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook has officially conquered the U.S. market on vampire throwing and drunk status updating, but what about abroad? What are intoxicated German teens supposed to do? And oppressed Chinese youngsters? Actually, they have their own Facebooks. Except they aren't international spin-offs — they're unsanctioned clones. And they've got lots of cash. Chinese Facebook clone Xiaonei got $430 million in funding earlier this year, and last year Germany's StudiVZ was bought for $120 million. Zuckerberg's unit, of course, sees none of this. And he's challenging them to a game of Scrabulous. [SIA]
Two big judgments out of the United Kingdom that, in all likelihood, won't affect us Americans one bit. But since we've all been on the Facebook and engaged in a Nazi orgy once or twice, they're worth schooling you on so you don't run into the same fate as a pair of gentlemen who had to sue to restore their good names. (Well, one of the guys who sued probably only soiled his name more.) CONTINUED »
Though it is unlikely to surpass Scrabulous in membership, John McCain's new Facebook video game Pork Invaders which turns the Republican candidate's campaign against pork barrel spending into a lunch-hour escape for would-be Internet predators. This is proof that Mr. McCain, like Barack Obama, gets Web 2.0, hurrah! [Joystiq]
A new feature on Facebook lets viewers rate the ads they see up or down, which will supposedly tell the social networking site which type of ads they're more amenable to. (Of course, you could vote down all the ads, which would be fair, because they're all pretty terrible.) Except the feature is only available to a select few in Facebook's test group, so it's likely most of you will have to suffer through a News Feed crammed with Blockbuster pitches with no recourse. [VB]
When somebody attaches the name of a social networking website and the word "suicide," we think of that tragedy in Missouri where 13-year-old Megan killed herself after a being taunted on MySpace. For the irreverent magazine AdBusters, "Facebook Suicide" is something else entirely. Based on the site's maniacal policy about removing one's profile, AdBusters has spotted a trend where users, desperate to leave the site but unable to easily do so, are killing themselves. CONTINUED »
"More 80,000 people signed up as a Sex and the City fan on Facebook as of early Sunday, many writing enthusiastic reviews." [Clickz] By comparison, the "For every 100 people who join this group, I will donate a child to NAMBLA" group has 1,426 members. And "Jihad against Sex and the city" has but 9 members.
A new Facebook look is coming! Tweaks and updates and all sorts of minor, barely worth mentioning goodies that will debut sometime in the near, soon-to-arrive, imminent and sure-to-come future. [Facebook]
In an effort to placate parents who watch Dateline: To Catch a Predator and privacy advocates whose No. 1 goal in life is to make the Internet safe for kids to upload photos of their puppies, Facebook is implementing new privacy safeguards for minors.
None of which can't be completely fudged, of course. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
