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Kara Tours the New Facebook HQ (and Gets Ripped): The Uncut Video!

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Last week, in anticipation of Facebook’s Press Open House tonight for its spanking new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., BoomTown hightailed it down there for an early look-see at just what the social-networking site is doing with all that dough it collected from Microsoft (MSFT) and the Russians.

Moving into a new crib, for one thing!

Thus, I got a an extra-special tour of the 150,000-square-foot new building, which brings more than 900 employees together at last, by Facebook’s long-suffering–mostly due to my being annoying, I know!–PR honcho, Brandee Barker.

Previously, the fast-growing Facebook staff had been spread willy-nilly throughout the downtown of Palo Alto, where they irked pretty much everyone by stealing all the good parking.

So, much like the tour I did recently with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone of its San Francisco HQ, here is a video of Facebook’s new digs in the heart of Silicon Valley.

It includes the whole place, which used to be a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) facility, from the front door to the cafeteria to the evil lair of VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy, Elliot Schrage.

While he did not deign to be on camera (although he did shellac me in a quick game of ping-pong, in spite of my smack talk), I did get to chat with folks like marketing exec Randi Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Also, Barker tries mightily to show that she can ride a Rip Stick, which is apparently Facebook’s version of bikes at Google (GOOG).

At the very least, she gets an A for effort.

Here’s the video of my tour:

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About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »

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Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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