All Things Digital

This past Saturday night, BoomTown attended the tony San Francisco book party for Jonathan Zittrain’s new book, “The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It.”

It was hosted by megablogger Arianna Huffington and Melanie Ellison, an old friend of Zittrain’s from high school, as it turned out.

And BoomTown took our Flip video camera, of course.

For one, it was held at Ellison’s stunning Pacific Heights home, with a lot of Internet and San Francisco wattage in attendance, including Melanie’s husband, Larry Ellison, and Mayor Gavin Newsom.

By the way, Zittrain is professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, and co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

And the book is actually not about stopping the Web–perish the thought, as what would I do with my life without my beloved Internet, which I would marry if it were legal?

Instead, according to Zittrain, my beloved Web is in deep, deep trouble!

He is justifiably worried about innovation continuing and the book is a bracing call to fix some of the Internet’s serious structural and other problems, before it collapses in a giant heap of too-tightly controlled mundanity.

I’m for that! Let Web Wackiness Worldwide (WWW!) reign!

In that spirit, here is a video of the party, in which I ask everyone the key question: What is the future of the Internet?

The video includes some book party speeches and thoughts from Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media, Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer, Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, Zittrain and, of course, Huffington (and I also got her to impersonate Tracey Ullman impersonating Arianna to up the wacky quotient) .

And also three Internet clowns trying to impersonate me. Wackier still!

Here’s the video (there is an odd voice/video disconnect in the Zittrain and clown sections at the very end that I am trying to fix):

Silicon Valley luminary Marc Andreessen (pictured here) has been asked to join the board of Facebook, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation.

While the arrangement is not completed yet, sources said the longtime entrepreneur has verbally agreed to accept the post to become the fourth member of the board of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social-networking site.

Other board members include Accel Partners Jim Breyer, Founders Fund’s Peter Thiel and Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. Greylock Partners David Sze also has observer status on the board.

Since he co-founded browser pioneer Netscape in the 1990s and helped usher in the Internet age, Andreessen has been an active investor and has created several successful start-ups.

His most current effort has been Ning, also based in Palo Alto, which is a white-label social-networking company that recently raised another $60 million in funding.

If Andreessen joins Facebook’s board, the move is yet another sign that the much-hyped start-up, which has undergone some growing pains over the last year, as well as garnering a $15 billion valuation, is growing up by bringing some major high-profile tech figures into its ranks.

Last night, for example, BoomTown broke the news that Google PR head Elliot Schrage had accepted a similiar job at Facebook.

That comes after Facebook hired another top Google (GOOG) exec, Sheryl Sandberg, as its COO, in March.

A while back, BoomTown suggested that Web 1.0 golden boy Andreessen–pictured here on the iconic Time magazine cover in 1996–would be a good mentor for current golden boy Zuckerberg, in a piece I did about potential execs for Facebook.

As I wrote in February:

But why not go for the man who was Zuckerberg before Zuckerberg was cool. Yes, the shiniest of Golden Geeks himself, Marc Andreessen.

I could go on and on about the similarities I find between the two, if you compared today’s Zuckerberg with the Netscape founder in the mid-1990s.

From their arrogant innocence to their visionary qualities to their enfant-terrible charm, it is almost as if they were separated at birth.

But now Andreessen is all grown up and much, much matured from when I covered him. He has become all calm and sage and he even does a very decent blog.

Plus, he has also started and run a number of start-ups after Netscape, giving him deeper managerial experience over the last dozen years.

And, best of all, Andreessen knows the pressure of being the best-thing-since-sliced-bread in the tech sector, and its inevitable downside too.

Overall, a real mentor and partner for Zuckerberg, making a perfect pair of Golden Geeks.”

After BoomTown broke the news yesterday that top Google exec Sheryl Sandberg was tapped by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg to be COO of the hot social-networking company, I talked with her and got the usual blah-blah quotes about scaling and growing operations and building a platform and how she wasn’t leaving Google as much as “going to an opportunity.”

But, as loyal readers will find out in the weeks and months ahead, she is sure to make for a much more lively new character in our ongoing and near-obsessive coverage of the Facebook saga, which we at BoomTown HQ like to call “As the SuperPoke Turns.”

It is certainly an interesting bet for Sandberg to make the move from the powerful Google (GOOG) to the upstart Facebook. And whether she wins or loses, it will be fascinating to watch.

But fried as she was late last night when we talked after the big announcement was finally made and deserving of a break, BoomTown will bring you a sassier sit-down with Sandberg after she clears out of the Googleplex Friday after six years (wherein all her rights to unlimited visits to the organic soba latte barista and shiatsu massage therapist will be suspended tout de suite!).

So until then, here are some sizzling tidbits about Sandberg (pictured here, with those soon-to-vanish colored Google exercise balls) to chew on:

The 2007 holiday party where Sandberg met Zuckerberg for the first time was thrown by former Yahoo president and COO Dan Rosensweig, who is close to both (apparently, BoomTown’s invite, where I could have witnessed this historic meeting, was lost in the mail!). Interestingly, Rosensweig himself was someone Zuckerberg probably considered bringing into Facebook.

One plus for the socially awkward Zuckerberg is that Sandberg–who spent her formative years swimming in the shark-infested waters of Washington, D.C., as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Larry Summers during the Clinton administration–has struck a lot of friendships around the Valley. That includes Google rival Yahoo (YHOO), where her husband David Goldberg once headed up the music efforts. Yahoo President Sue Decker is a good friend, for example.

Sandberg even seems to make nice with VCs (she has to, as her husband is now an entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Partners). According to Facebook board member and major investor Jim Breyer of Accel, for example: “I met her in 2001 at the U2 Concert in San Jose. Bono called her name out in front of the whole crowd thanking her for the work she had done with Larry Summers. We (including Bono) all went out for drinks afterwards. Little did I know that it would be a 23-year-old entrepreneur who would finally allow me to recruit her.”

Ah, the sweet ironies of the Valley!

Speaking of which, here’s a video I did in June, with a longish chat with the then-pregnant Sandberg at the start, where we talk about the status of women–or lack thereof–in Silicon Valley.

The occasion was one of Sandberg’s regular gatherings, which she organizes at her home in Atherton, Calif., and which she calls “Women of Silicon Valley.” (Alternatively, BoomTown has dubbed them “ladyfests.”)

The events feature a wide range of speakers, talking to a broad swath of typically high-ranking women technology executives from Internet, software and hardware companies, as well as from other walks of life, about a range of issues. This one was with political pundit and Web diva Arianna Huffington.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Over the next week, I will be posting the most popular videos on BoomTown from 2007.

Here’s my personal favorite, which I call “I Heart Mark Zuckerberg.” It is a short and–let’s just say it, shall we?–deeply uncomfortable encounter BoomTown had with the Facebook founder and CEO.

(To be fair, we caught him completely unaware when he and Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer dropped by our table at Il Fornaio in Palo Alto, Calif.)

Here’s the video:

Why does the idea of a marriage between Hollywood writers and VCs make me slightly queasy?

But that’s just the feeling I got when I read the always sharp Joseph Menn of the Los Angeles Times, who penned an interesting piece earlier this week about writers in Hollywood turning to venture capitalists as the strike drags on.

Wrote Menn: “At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.”

That includes meetings with Silicon Valley VCs like Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, whose investment in Facebook gives it insight into the creation of new audiences.

The hope for the–let’s just say it, shall we–unnatural pairing of tech VCs and Hollywood folks?

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What can we say about investor Peter Thiel, when it is much better to listen to him talk?

Here’s a longish video I made at Thiel’s office on San Francisco’s Presidio (no Sand Hill Road mundanity for Peter!) yesterday with the man who has become Silicon Valley’s most interesting venture capitalist and all-around great character of late.

Now running the VC firm called the Founders Fund, as well as a hedge fund called Clarium Capital Management, Thiel has a lot to say about everything from the painfully slow decline of old media (likening them to train companies in a plane world!) to the underhyping of Web 2.0 companies like Facebook (a 10-times-10 valuation from its current $15 billion if the hot social network, in which he was the first investor, keeps up its torrid pace of growth!) to the state of venture capital (needs a shake-up!).

My favorite quote from the interview comes from Thiel right at the end: “There’s absolutely no bubble in technology.”

Read more »

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Well, we’re glad it’s done, our conflict of interest shoved aside by the hey-big-spenders at Microsoft and we can again resume our incredulous analysis of the insane $15 billion valuation of Facebook.

No matter who would have gotten to make nice with founder Mark Zuckerberg in the hefty ad-investment deal–Google or Microsoft–we will be sticking to our guns on this ridiculous roundelay of hype and circumstance.

That’s because this valuation, while a paper windfall for its investors and those currently employed at Facebook, has exactly no meaning until the company actually performs financially to keep up with the lofty figure and then, presumably, goes public in a great rush of glory.

Of course, that does not mean this bump–which could only happen in a very bubbly Silicon Valley–will not help the company pick up some tasty acquisitions now using its overpriced stock, as long as targets are willing to play along with the still-questionable dream of future riches.

And, of course, in the here and now, Facebook will get an even bigger slug of guaranteed ad dollars from international as well as U.S. markets from Microsoft, which will be losing a giant amount of money in the arrangement.

As a plus to Facebook and an important element in Microsoft signing this deal, by the way, sources confirm that the start-up got much better terms in its U.S. ad deal that basically lets them control the whole partnership without any hooks for Microsoft.

Does any of this really matter? From a perspective of big, cash-rich companies throwing huge dollars at hot start-ups, it is, as one investor told me last night, meaningless.

“It’s trivial to Microsoft to spend this money and worth the gamble,” this person said.

Indeed.

Because while execs at both companies talk about the potential–and there is a massive amount of it in the Facebook business model–both Microsoft and deal-loser Google, too, were willing to bankroll a loss leader in the hopes of later return, a whole lot of important education about the social-networking space and also likely solid returns in an IPO scenario.

And for Microsoft, that is OK, given that the software giant needed to land this deal for all sorts of reasons (seeming relevant in the fast-moving Web 2.0 space and, of course, the sweet-sweet feeling of actually beating out Google) and has more than enough money to burn.

That’s obvious too with the $240 million cash investment (with more to come from other greedmonger private investors, of course, in another round now being arranged by Facebook) that bought Microsoft exactly 1.6% of Facebook.

That puts Microsoft behind Greylock Partners’ and Meritech Capital Partners’ 1.7%, Founders Fund’s 5% and Accel Partners’ 11%–Accel partner and Facebook board member Jim Breyer also has a personal 1% stake, now valued at $150 million–and Zuckerberg’s 20% (not the 30% that has been widely reported), which is now worth $3 billion.

So what can we say but: Party on, Garth!

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that for all the fabulous growth, Facebook is still a very small business now carrying a very large valuation on its slight shoulders. So far, it has only $150 million in annual revenue, half of which comes from its guaranteed ad deal with Microsoft, and is break-even on a cash-flow basis.

So more cash in the kitty is a good thing, allowing Facebook, as one of its execs said yesterday, to double its work force to 700, jack up its international business and better service its 50 million active users.

This is all well and good for turbocharging a business that is growing like gangbusters. But while Facebook executives argue that all trends point upward, I still maintain that potential is not actual.

As I have previously written: “While the minions at Facebook under its young leader are laboring mightily to come up with new ways to make revenues and its strong growth is laudable and I loved the splashy widgetmania Facebook unleashed, let us try not to be too jaded when we say we have seen this story of spiky growth followed by less-than-spiky growth before.”

So excuse me for being worried about this deal and what it might do to the business discipline and attitude of Facebook, making it sit too long on the laurels of being able to gin up an investor frenzy and not focus on making the service one that is consistently innovative and useful to users and, of course, building a truly different kind of advertising business.

Frankly, while spending on social-networking sites is supposed to triple this year, I have still not seen a breathtakingly groundbreaking new kind of advertising from Facebook (or anyone else) that merits this valuation.

All the rich data Facebook collects and parses back out is amazing, but I still need to see actual ad programs and results that blow the mind and change the game.

I have talked to Facebook investor Jim Breyer many times about this concern related to this cart-before-the-horse valuation, so let me quote him directly about it, from one of our conversations:

“Companies always need to separate valuation from strategic and performance issues, and this is obviously a valuation we need to grow into and we hope we will,” he said. “But we know it is an aggressive valuation.”

That’s what you might call an understatement, Silicon Valley-style.

Since we are refraining from writing about the current deals being mulled over by Facebook (see this post and also this disclosure)–one for its international ad business with rivals Google and Microsoft vying for the privilege of losing money in a guaranteed revenue deal and another to complete a mega-round of funding that will value the hot social-networking site at $15 billion–BoomTown is bored!

And surly, given that we always have a lot to say about Facebook. (OK, OK, one tidbit: Its execs and investors have been disagreeing over how big a new investment to take–the operations folks want more cash and the VCs less dilution.)

That does not mean I do not hope to break news of what Facebook finally manages to decide to do, both with regard to partners and its funding, but that I will bow out of parsing this particular set of deals in excessive detail.

But our ennui got us thinking to back in mid-August, when we did a post making our own Facebook of the top execs there using your basic corporate shots.

So now, before they become all rich and start flying private, we compiled from less corporate pictures we found right on Facebook and the Web–we were going for a more fun Facebook of the players here.

We used all the execs from the last one, but we also added one woman, PR maven Brandee Barker, as well as the three principal VCs.

Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a picture presumably taken at Harvard. He looks so young and naive. Kind of like now.

Zuckerberg best buddy and tech genius Adam D’Angelo (VP and CTO) on a thrilling night at Foo Camp! What could be more fun than an overhead projector and a room full of geeky guys!

Who knew co-founder and VP of Engineering Dustin Moskovitz was such a fox? His future is so bright, he needs those rad shades!

What deft bit of performance art is wacky Owen Van Natta, VP of Operations and Chief Revenue Officer, performing here? A meditation on life as an underling of various and sundry Web moguls–all Silly String and sorrows?

We have no idea what Chamath Palihapitiya, VP of Product Marketing and Operations, is doing, but it looks cool, and he’s dressed natty as always.

Hey, who also knew that VP of Strategy and Operations Matt Cohler was in a 1990s techno-rock duo? (Oh, he’s the one without the shades.)

VP and CFO Gideon “Death Cat” Yu used to have to drink from public fountains, but soon he’ll have his own, spewing only the finest champagne!

It is hard to know where to begin with this picture of PR head Brandee Barker (is she headed for the Castro Street Fair?). But I say: Own it, sister!

There are exactly zero interesting pictures of doubtlessly interesting Founders Fund VC Peter Thiel online (and we looked hard). That’s him on the right, looking the most normal of this PayPal crew.

Again, it is hard to know exactly what Accel Partners VC Jim Breyer is up to here, but we think the hat might be a new and exciting look for him.

Greylock Partners VC David Sze is thinking really hard about how he can say Facebook is worth $15 billion and still keep a straight face and refrain from cackling in front of all the other VCs at Il Fornaio.

“Why,” said a sharp Silicon Valley figure to me last night, “would Facebook give away the cow for the price of a quart of milk?”

Why, indeed, although it would be a $15 billion quart of milk.

But it was an interesting point he was making about the situation the hot social-networking site finds itself in right now, as it juggles how and in what manner to complete a round of funding it has been considering to tide it over before the IPO its investors have publicly said it is in line for in 2009.

In fact, there are a lot of interesting issues swirling around the Facebook funding deal and, thus, it’s time for an update!

First, Facebook, which has been basically floating this funding trial balloon to see what surfaces–much as a savvy Washington pol would an issue–is still debating whether to take such an investment and trying to determine what such a move would mean.

Is it just a way for the fast-growing platform to get money for critical expansion, to press forward with innovation and momentum and to even make acquisitions?

Or is it actually kind of an amateur move that will result in the early execs, especially founder Mark Zuckerberg, regretting the decision to sell out a piece of the potential moon shot of a start-up too early? If Zuckerberg and others really believe in their vision, goes this line of thought, why sell itself cheap now?

Or is this valuation, which is all about potential and not performance, simply insane?

According to my sources close to the company, in any case, it is pretty obvious Facebook will still not turn back now, given the level of interest from a wide range of investors, from investment banks to private equity funds to hedge funds to other VC outfits to big media companies.

Such an amount of money, if the valuation remains at $15 billion, for some chunk of the company (the size of which is also being debated), would give the company a cushion to figure out and perfect a truly powerful and innovative business model.

Facebook, many have observed, is somewhat like Google just before that company got its magic bullet with the perfecting of its AdWords product back in 2002.

Second, the principal activity around the possible investment centers, said sources, on two major tech players. As has been reported here and elsewhere, one is Microsoft, of course, which is Facebook’s ad-serving partner and which currently delivers the company a sweetheart guaranteed ad revenue payment of about $75 million annually.

But the second, said sources, is not, as might be expected, Google. It is, in fact, dark horse Yahoo.

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An interesting new site debuts today called Global Grind–an aggregation and destination site aimed specifically at the hip-hop community–that combines what looks like the widgety NetVibes home-page approach with a hipper version of Digg plus a lot of curated content-pointing.

It’s not so different in its technology or even its look (see below)–you could swap out its hip-hop content with, say, parenting-oriented stuff and have Mommy Grind instead. It is free and ad-supported and hopes to grow via viral methods (blah, blah, blah).

But the move to ever more niche-oriented social-networking type offerings for users is definitely a development to watch. With giant sites like Facebook and MySpace becoming as generic as Yahoo and AOL of old, more and more sites will be looking for an edge by drilling down deeply to serve a highly targeted audience.

This is, of course, back to the future in concept. Many years ago, a plethora of sites were aimed a specific demographic groups–gay sites, Hispanic sites and also African-American sites–and boomed in popularity.

But most of those have seen a falloff lately, as the traditional portal approach has given way to the social-networking paradigm of hyper-community and interactivity.

Promising to deliver “your Web filtered fresh”–don’t ask me what that means, as I am what you might call anti-hip–Global Grind will aim at a wide-ranging audience that identifies with the hip-hop culture, well beyond simply music. The site’s creator, Navarrow Wright, said there are about 24 million people in the U.S.–across all demographics–who do.

“We want to become an aggregation epicenter,” said Wright (who used to run technology for BET.com) in an interview with me yesterday. “It is all about distributed content and getting audiences the information they value.”

I would agree.

Also interesting is Global Grind’s mix of investors–hip-hip impresario Russell Simmons and Accel Partners Jim Breyer (who trumps me in the anti-hip department, it must be said).

“My entire life has been about promoting the best talent and important causes, and I was amazed at how Global Grind was building an online destination to do just this and was using technology in a really innovative way,” said Simmons.

“The theme fits with our view that there is enormous investment opportunity in content and advertising networks that target specific audiences through the creation of an owned and operated hub combined with spokes or affiliates,” wrote Breyer to me in an email. The formation of grassroots micro-communities and Web 2.0 infrastructure is allowing these new media models to evolve.”

Now that’s some fresh geekspeak for you!

Here’s an interesting idea if you don’t want to get bought and you can’t quite IPO yet and you need to have a tidy war chest for expansion or perhaps a choice acquisition or two: Bring in more investors and raise more money at a huge valuation.

That’s a concept that the top dogs at Facebook are seriously mulling over now, according to sources, after getting so many inquiries from investment funds and several bigger companies–such as its ad-serving partner, Microsoft–about grabbing a stake in the fast-growing social-networking Web site.

While who and how much is still unclear and, most importantly, in what form, sources said a deal could come together quickly if the numbers are lofty enough for the site, which has about 40 million members currently. But the investment could be quite large, well beyond its last $25 million one in 2006, for little dilution.

“There are several B’s involved in the discussions,” said one person interested in the possible round, referring to a multibillion valuation for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up.

Those kinds of valuations have already been bandied about for the site, from a just-under-$1-billion deal from Yahoo that fell apart last year and rumors of a $6 billion interest from Microsoft.

And in a widely read interview with the Deal in July, board member and early investor Peter Thiel (pictured here) of the Founders Fund floated a more massive figure.

“If we got an offer from someone for $10 billion, we probably would listen to them,” Thiel told the Deal’s David Shabelman. “I don’t think we’re going to get that offer, and we’re not going to solicit it.”

Thiel initially invested $500,000 in 2004 in the company, which was followed by two more rounds, for a total of about $32 million. The last one was more than a year ago for $25 million, giving Facebook a $525 million pre-money valuation.

Other major investors include Accel Partners (Accel’s Jim Breyer is also on the board, along with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) and Greylock Partners, as well as Meritech Capital Partners.

In the Deal interview, Thiel also said that Facebook would not go public until its business was stronger and not until at least 2009, following the successful tactics once employed by a pre-IPO Google.

But that’s a lot of time for the company, which needs to keep growing at a rapid pace, both from a technology and innovation point of view.

While it is on track, Thiel and Breyer have both said publicly, to have revenues of $150 million this year, half of that comes from its guaranteed ad deal with Microsoft.

While its revenues are growing strongly, insiders report, so are its costs, as it ratchets up headcount and features and services.

Thus, it will need a lot of investment to keep competitive, including increasing its international profile.

For example, top Facebook execs are now in London, meeting with the British press and also announcing the opening of a spanking new office there. London is Facebook’s largest member city, in terms of geography, and Britain is its third biggest country, after the U.S. and Canada.

In addition, Facebook might need a pile of moolah to buy smaller companies to help build its business, such as its very first acquisition in July of Parakey (mostly for its star techie duo, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, co-founders of Mozilla Firefox).

But in order to do more acquisitions, Facebook might want a larger established valuation for its stock and also cash to use.

“If Facebook can do this without significant dilution, it’s a great deal for the venture investors,” said one person familiar with Facebook. “And it could give Facebook a lot of flexibility.”

But who gets to invest is another story, especially given that the company is the latest hot ticket since Google in Silicon Valley. An obvious candidate is Microsoft.

But some close to Facebook worry that aligning itself so closely with the software giant is a mistake, believing that it should not be too closely linked to any one company.

In any case, given the heat surrounding the company, there is no lack of moneybag suitors, all waiting to rain down copious cash on Zuckerberg and his team.

In my post–OK, diatribe–yesterday about Facebook and the dangers of it getting so much of the wrong kind of media attention, I neglected to also mention an interview its ubiquitous founder, Mark Zuckerberg, did with the “Today” show’s Meredith Vieira in mid-June.

Since NBC will not let me embed it and it has not hurtled over to YouTube yet, here’s a link to the short chat, in which Zuckerberg did acquit himself well and Vieira not so much (did she have to resort to the what-will-those-crazy-kids-think-of-next attitude and can she really be that perplexed by what the social-networking site might offer someone over 25 years old?).

Still, it is more of the same kind of fluff that needs to be replaced by a rigorous look at the company’s business strengths.

In that vein, the always entertaining Owen Thomas, Valleywag’s newest, I guess, um, Wag, floated an interesting notion in this post that Jim Breyer (pictured here, with his doppelgänger Tony Soprano) of Accel Partners–the big venture backer of Facebook–might use his inside track to measure the popularity of third-party application developers now proliferating on Facebook.

And then, in a move that would make Ma Soprano proud, Breyer would muscle the winners into accepting his investment dollars on his terms.

Thomas also speculates–with no actual proof, although I was riveted by the story line–that Breyer would unleash the specter of uncooperative apps makers getting quashed by Facebook, if they did not acquiesce to his nefarious demands.

Even though I have known Breyer a long time and it is my definitive impression that my 5-year-old son could handily best the doe-eyed VC in a fair fight, it’s apparently always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.

So I was at a lunch of the AllThingsD.com staff in Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday–at Il Fornaio, natch, where we pretended to be as important as its usual dot-com mogul and VC customers, but failed miserably–when Accel Partners VC Jim Breyer stopped by to chat about some stuff.

Unexpectedly, he brought along Mark Zuckerberg, the 20-something founder of Facebook, with whom Breyer had been lunching.

Graciously and mostly because he had zero choice after I whipped out my annoying tiny white Pure Digital digital video camera, Zuckerberg gives a quick update in the video below about the recent much-ballyhooed opening of the hot social-networking platform to third-party developers.

But when I ask him about the buyout rumors that have swirled around the company for a good long time–the new one has Google sniffing about, by the way–he scoffed, but then got mighty uncomfortable in a hurry.

Luckily, his valiant VC Breyer swooped in and showed just what he does to earn his zillions. And, as he had in this previous post, Breyer underscored that the company was not for sale.

But after I was done harassing him digitally, Zuckerberg surprised me by telling me I was “mean” to him in this blog and he kind of had a point. But not completely.

First, I do tend to write favorably of Facebook, which I think is an innovative, clean and well-executed Web experience that has even become useful to me of late (for some reason, as others have noted, I now have a boatload of “friends” on the site, which has become a Silicon Valley hotspot of late). Score one: Kara.

And I tend to smack around giant rival MySpace more, for being chaotic and irksome, although that might be because I am, shall we say, a grumpy older lady perplexed by all that flashy dreck. Again, Kara 2/Mark 0.

But I was definitely a tad mean in this post, about removing “A Mark Zuckerberg Production” from the bottom of Facebook page, which I thought a little self-absorbed on his part, and replacing it with the simpler Facebook © 2007.

I also began my holy war against the flip-flop obsession the press has latched upon when talking about Zuckerberg. Since he did build the company and it is really not my business what shoes he wears, I will give this one to Mark, so Kara2/Mark 1.

I did say Mark had “delusions of grandeur” here and implied he had a swelled head here.

I suppose when I think about it, that pretty much makes him average around Silicon Valley, which is the homeland of pompous fatheads. And, frankly, I think I use it on him more because of his youth, which is ageist–again, due to grumpy-older-lady disease. Kara 2/Mark 2.

But I think it was probably this post that likely irked Zuckerberg most. It was his big day announcing the opening of the Facebook platform and I characterized his onstage performance as awkward.

Well, it was, but I also said I meant it in the nicest way. Zuckerberg is not a smoothie in any way and that’s not a bad thing (think Bill Gates, Larry Page). It’s even endearing.

But I did go after those flip-flops again, which I said, “are now about as annoying to me as the lava lamps and colorful bouncy balls at Google eventually became.” Actually, I am still more annoyed by those lava lamps and balls, and now Google’s aren’t-we-kooky-as-ever dinosaur statue on its campus.

So perhaps we will have a split decision here. Kara 2.5/Mark 2.5. Given that, Mark, can’t we just get along?

While Walt and I will come up with our own questions for Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, who will be appearing in an historic joint interview at our D conference next Wednesday night, I was curious what others–some tech folks and some not in the industry–would ask the tech legends if they could in this post.

So yesterday afternoon, I moseyed on over to the San Francisco Design Center’s Concourse to the launch of the Facebook Platform, a new initiative by the No. 2 social-networking company as it seeks to transform its business to a larger stage by partnering with all sorts of third-party developers.

While there, of course, I ran into a panoply of Web 2.0 denizens and got their take on what queries should be put to Gates and Jobs, seen strung together in the video below.

First up (and best question thus far): Digg founder Kevin Rose, who wanted to know what each of them would do if they switched roles.

Then, Plum founder Hans Peter Brondmo wanted to know why the pair was not jumping onto the open Web and also why Microsoft could not churn out operating systems like Apple.

Entrepreneur Julie Hanna Farris was curious about open-source issues, as well as Web-delivered applications.

Accel Partners venture capitalist Jim Breyer, a big Facebook investor, drilled in on Jobs and asked why Apple had stopped embracing start-ups.

And, finally, Facebook COO Owen Van Natta wanted to know when Microsoft and Apple would starting building on, of course, the new Facebook Platform.

When Microsoft is willing to fork over $6 billion to buy an online ad network, in the wake of a $3.1 billion bid by Google for another, you know the industry was going to develop a serious case of faux acquisition fever.

It is characterized by heedless speculation, rampant rumormongering and delusions of grandeur. The known pathogens: investment bankers and venture capitalists, who ramp up their spiels in the froth that results from a series of major deals in an industry sector.

And so comes the rumor that Yahoo was kicking the wheels at the social-networking site Bebo, which is the third big player in the business after MySpace and Facebook with particular strength in Britain, in this report in that country’s Sunday Telegraph.

Though Yahoo surely is looking for a social-networking site after it failed in its attempt to buy Facebook for upward of $1.5 billion, it seems a reach that it would pay $1 billion for Bebo, which is significantly smaller and less high-profile (though it is a well-done service). In fact, let us pooh-pooh this particular rumor as wishful thinking, despite the fact that eventually Bebo will be sold.

And what of the many other heated rumors out there?

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