Facebook Should 'Unfriend' CEO

Rumor mill heats up that company is going public soon

(NEWSER) - Here come the Facebook IPO rumors again. An insider tells Business Insider that employees expect the company to go public soon, possibly next month. "The IPO talk inside Facebook has ramped up the past 6 weeks and Zuckerberg repeatedly has said that it is 'coming,' which he *never* said in the history of Facebook," says the source's email. More»

Also: Site poised for $2B in revenue this year

(NEWSER) - Get ready for another Facebook update: Next week, the site will start rolling out new face-recognition technology for photos, the Huffington Post reports. It’s “comforting” to know that the service won’t be automatic, writes Larry Magid. If the site thinks it recognizes someone, it will ask you for confirmation. Ignore it, and no tagging takes place. Privacy settings won’t change—you’ll still be alerted when you’re tagged and able to remove any unwanted tags. More»

Founder delayed project he was working on to benefit his site

(NEWSER) - Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from the founders of a rival site and intentionally stalled that site's development so his would prosper. That's the takeaway from an analysis of instant messages Business Insider says it “believes” the Facebook CEO sent while his site was getting off the ground in 2003 and 2004—and he was stonewalling the founders of the site that later became ConnectU, fellow Harvard students who had hired him to to develop their site. Is that “too dick?” he asked a confidant. More»

Social network crowds out Google and Yahoo for first time

(NEWSER) - Facebook got a big present this holiday season: It was the No. 1 US website on Christmas and on Christmas Eve. Facebook, which lagged behind Google in second place last year, trounced that site and rival Yahoo—though the search engines generated more traffic throughout the balance of the year. And social networking pulled off a Christmas miracle, ReadWriteWeb notes, despite the recent controversy over new privacy settings. More»

The new controls are causing lots of embarrassment for people

(NEWSER) - In its quest to "simplify and enhance the privacy experience" on Facebook, the company appears to have stripped away key features forever, writes Ryan Tate writes on Gawker . Now, you can't:

• Hide group/page memberships: Thanks, FB, says one user who must decide whether to defriend grandma or let her in on a Queer Graduate Student Union affiliation.