Here’s a video of star VC John Doerr reciting his 10 tips for start-ups to follow in the economic downturn.

Doerr gave out the advice at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” roundtable event, which took place at the Stanford Park Hotel in Palo Alto yesterday morning.

The Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers VC got a lot of attention for his list, which he culled from a survey of 18 of the companies his firm has invested in.

Doerr didn’t need a massive, noisy PowerPoint like Sequoia Capital to make his quick and clear points, which he delivered in four minutes flat.

Doerr was on an investors panel with Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, Ron Conway, Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates and Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital.

I moderated the second panel of entrepreneurs, including: Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that makes the WordPress blogging software; Max Levchin of Slide, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo; and Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0’s Epinions. Video of interviews with them and also Shriram to come later today!

But here’s Doerr reciting his 10 tips:

It will take place at the Stanford Park Hotel in Palo Alto from 8 a.m. to noon.

Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic (the company that makes the WordPress blogging software) will join Max Levchin of Slide, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, O’Melveny & Myers’ Sam Zucker, and Nirav Tolia of Web 1.0’s Epinions.

Along with my group, for whom I am planning all sorts of verbal tortures (”Exactly how much do you make?”), there is also a panel of investors, moderated by VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, which features: John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Ram Shriram, one of Google’s first investors, Ron Conway, Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates and Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital.

Oh, it is sure to be a festival of Web 2.0 pondering.

Said Marshall in a post about the gathering:

One goal of this event is to provide context and advice for start-up CEOs and founders facing the recession. We’ve handpicked the speakers for their remarkable records and experiences in the previous downturn. …

While the Sequoia [Capital] ‘RIP Good Times’ presentation gave a broad overview of the economic problems facing the tech world, it provided mostly a macro analysis, and a general prescription for companies.

Now is the time to take the analysis one step further, and discuss the variety of situations we see among valley investors and their start-ups: How cleantech companies are different from Internet start-ups, and how under certain conditions, a profitable company may actually be poised for aggressive growth, hiring and M&A–and not necessarily ideal for cost cutting. We intend to explore all of this and more.

Given the fairly predictable ‘Silicon Valley is in circle-the-wagons mode’ story line we’ve been seeing so far in the media, this event is also the Valley’s opportunity to help dispel this myth and explain how the area’s start-ups are actually quite diverse and that there are a mix of strategies at play.”

The event is sold out, but it will be streamed live.

And, as usual, look for a shaky video report of the roundtable from me later!

Here’s one certainty in the hubbub that has resulted in the wake of the departure of high-profile exec Ben Ling from Facebook last week: COO Sheryl Sandberg is definitely not responsible for the melting of the polar ice caps.

That’s the joking question–”Was global warming Sandberg’s fault too?”–asked at a staff meeting at the social-networking start-up last Friday afternoon after the news of Ling’s departure on the heels of previous employee exits suddenly morphed into a series of increasingly vituperative posts on the Valleywag tech gossip site centering on what blogger Owen Thomas called Sandberg’s “reign of terror” at Facebook.

Using Photoshopped images–one of Sandberg wielding a rifle and another with the bright-red word, “LIAR,” plastered under her mug–the vaguely sexist and decidedly over-the-top picture painted was of Sandberg (at right) as some unholy cross of Lady Macbeth, the bad side of Hillary Clinton and a really grumpy fascist dictator of a small third-world country.

“She demands total loyalty, and brooks no dissent–even the healthy, boisterous debate that’s common to start-ups,” wrote Thomas dramatically, as if Sandberg might really use that fake rifle on errant minions. “You’re either with Sheryl, or you’re against Sheryl. And if you’re against Sheryl, you’re not long for Facebook.”

Owen, you have now officially scared the bejesus out of BoomTown with that added dash of Rosa Klebb!

(And, of course, this image conveniently leaves out the very pertinent fact that Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still firmly and much more militantly in charge at Facebook than ever before, but we will get to that later.)

In any case, Valleywag used all of this to postulate that Sandberg’s insane reaction to Ling’s leaving–complete with a sneaky-sounding stock bribe to buy his silence–was evidence of her mad grab for power over all of Facebook.

The talented and strong-willed Ling was portrayed in an odd way too, as some sort of whiny victim of circumstances he was unable to control.

Except–while BoomTown likes a good “Tom and Jerry” cartoon as much as the next person–it’s a deeply inaccurate portrayal of Sandberg, who arrived at Facebook in March; of what happened with regard to Ling; and most of all, of the often-painful growing-up process that has actually been occurring inside of Facebook.

The Ling incident is, in fact, a perfect example of this.

According to multiple sources from all sides, Ling (pictured here) was offered the choice of resigning or being terminated last Monday, and he and Facebook senior management wrangled over how he would leave the company and announce his return to Google (GOOG)–in a big job at its YouTube division, in fact. But the true story of his departure is highly typical of how small, promising Web companies stumble forward.

From mismanaging expectations related to Ling’s job after his arrival from Google last fall (after Facebook widely touted the new recruit), to constant shifts in how the company was organized, to a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings on both sides, the curious case of Benjamin Ling and Sheryl Sandberg is–more than anything–completely human.

Which is to say, it is a bit of a mess.

Here’s what I found out, after spending the weekend talking to as many people with knowledge of the situation as possible, in a very long report:

To begin, as someone who has been consistently tough on the company for its insane valuation, criticized its sometimes ham-handed management and pressed it to show the true path to sustainable monetization, I think I cannot be considered a cheerleader for Facebook or for its shifting management.

Thus, I and many others looked closely at the recent departures of CTO Adam D’Angelo (to take time off) in May and longtime exec Matt Cohler in June (to become a VC at Benchmark Capital) with a gimlet eye.

Looking further, I learned from several sources that the 20-something D’Angelo had issues with the company inevitably becoming larger and more bureaucratic, and there were also questions about his ability to run the much larger and increasingly complicated technical organization.

The sudden exit of Cohler (pictured here), who had become Facebook’s VP of Product Management, had an even a more complex set of variables, sources said, including his longtime interest in being a VC, the highly attractive offer he got from Benchmark and, most of all, his lack of interest in running a much larger organization.

While some say Cohler–who was, in fact, key to bringing Sandberg in–quickly grew disillusioned with her and the direction of Facebook, it seems a bit of a stretch to me to say he left because of her.

As Zuckerberg’s earliest and most trusted of execs, who is also well-liked by all, Cohler had as much–if not more–power as Sandberg over the organization. More likely, I imagine Cohler would have stayed if he thought she was laying waste to the place.

In any case, the arrival of Sandberg–followed quickly by the hiring of former Google PR head Elliot Schrage–heralded massive changes and an eventual path to an IPO for Facebook, a journey that not everyone welcomed, to be sure.

With their much more disciplined and controlling management styles, highly polished Harvard, Washington, D.C. and Google resumes, and obviously sharper edges, Sandberg and Schrage (pictured here) represented a contrast to earlier, less-intense times that not everyone at Facebook has liked.

Many execs–used to the chaos of jostling for attention and power from the close-to-the-vest Zuckerberg, whose attention to various employees seems to always wax and wane–also resisted a No. 2 in charge.

Typical was discontent from Technical Operations VP Jonathan Heiliger, whom many sources pointed to because of his vocal complaints around the company and around Silicon Valley about Sandberg’s more brusque and meddlesome style.

(Heiliger now gets along better with Sandberg, according to many, as do many execs previously wary of the new regime.)

Interestingly, Ling was not in this disgruntled camp, having known Sandberg from Google and hoped her arrival would clarify his growing disappointment with the job he thought he had been hired for.

According to many sources, Ling thought his job as director of platform product marketing, as described to him by Zuckerberg and others who recruited him in the fall of 2007, would be much more expansive than it turned out to be.

And, indeed, the letter from his new boss, Chamath Palihapitiya, heralding his arrival seemed to indicate that Ling would have a lot of responsibility:

Hi Guys,

Please join me in welcoming Ben to Facebook as our Director of Platform Product Marketing, working on my team. He joins us from Google where he was the General Manager of eCommerce, where he ran Google Product Search and Google Checkout and was the founder of Google Checkout. Ben also led the mobile efforts at Google in 2004, where he launched Google SMS. Prior to Google, Ben received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Ben is responsible for overseeing Platform aspects of Product Management, Product Marketing, Technical Support, and Partner Solutions.

Zuck, D’Angelo and I are psyched to have Ben on board. *BLING*, as he is known to his friends, sits on the 2nd floor of 156 if you want to come by and introduce yourself.

Chamath”

It was a wide swath of duties, which seemed to indicate that Ling was, in essence, the lead manager of the platform.

This turned out not to be the case, as Facebook runs more as a “functional” organization rather than a “cross-functional” one, which is to say, no one manager is in charge of all the many parts it takes to get a product out the door.

For someone like Ling, sources said, the lack of structure meant chaos and no clear lines of accountability, and he pressed his bosses for more definition of his role.

For their part, sources said, those execs–Palihapitiya (pictured here) and then Cohler–felt Ling was too interested in internal politics, his title and control rather than in taking the lead in a more organic way. They also felt Ling, while a good executor of tasks, lacked the vision to be the overall manager of the platform.

Whether they ever did anything about it, of course, remains unclear, except for the fact that this kind of thing happens a lot all over Silicon Valley.

Let me just stop here then, because one can go round and round with this kind of wrangling over job performance issues and never be able to determine who exactly is to blame.

But it is safe to say Ling was not happy with Facebook and Facebook was not happy with Ling.

When Schrage was put in charge of platform marketing (and not in charge of the platform itself, as many have misconstrued, since he is decidedly nontechnical), the controversial move caused more problems and threw Ling’s status into even more confusion.

Ling and many others did not like the move, of course, but Ling did go to Schrage to share his disappointment and then took his gripes to Sandberg.

That, from what I can tell, is where things went most awry.

In that meeting about 10 days ago, Ling told her that Google had been tring to recruit him and that he was unhappy with the structure of the Facebook organization. According to those who back Ling, he was not making a threat, but seeking advice.

That is not the way those at Facebook see it. “Ben wanted a bigger job, and he was using the prospect of going to Google as a hammer,” said one person. “But he was not doing a good enough job with what he had been running to make such demands.”

Sandberg said she would discuss it with other senior execs, most especially Zuckerberg, and get back to Ling with some answers on Monday.

That was when discontent with Ling bubbled up among his managers, and suddenly a series of smaller slights and problems with Ling added up, and not in his favor.

Curiously, although Facebook sources claim they were dissatisfied with Ling’s work, there seems to have been exactly zero effort to remove him before he revealed the Google offer.

Nonetheless, all now agreed that Ling should not have the larger job, especially if he was also considering a job at rival Google–although, once again, it is not clear that he actually asked for a larger role within Facebook.

What has been lost in this story, though, is that the final decision came from Zuckerberg (pictured here), who was irked by Ling’s demands and his perceived disloyalty.

Sandberg and Schrage came back to Ling on Monday of last week with a startling decision: He could either resign immediately and write an email to his staff announcing it or he would be terminated by them that night and they would announce it.

Ling was, many sources said, flabbergasted that what he thought was an attempt to get some clarity had turned into this. His detractors maintained he was threatening Facebook by dangling the Google offer.

Ling wrote his letter to staff, and news of his departure leaked by the next day, both to me and VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon.

In my post, Ling did not say he resigned under pressure, nor did Facebook say it was about to fire him if he did not resign.

“I have huge respect for Elliot and work well with him,” Ling told me. “Facebook is a tremendous organization, and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity.”

Facebook’s statement said, in part: “Facebook confirms that Ben Ling will be leaving the company in the coming weeks to pursue other interests. We wish him well and appreciate his great contributions to the early success of Facebook Platform.”

No surprise, but things got worse when the discussions quickly turned to the terms of his departure. Ling was only a few months away from his “cliff” for vesting one-quarter of the equity he got for coming to Facebook.

Facebook offered to either accelerate that completely or even make an offer of some of those shares, but only if Ling stayed on the Facebook payroll–taking a two-month vacation–and did not accept an offer from Google or anyone else in that time period.

In addition, deeply sensitive to the perception of a high-profile Google hire going back to the mother ship, Facebook wanted the deal to include a provision barring an immediate announcement that Ling would return to the search giant.

Obviously, given that the original story had been all about talent leaving Google to come to Facebook, the opposite was a much less palatable plot.

Still, this kind of request to refrain from going right to work for a competitor in exchange for shares is not untypical, and companies almost always ask for strict nondisparagement clauses.

But in the hothouse blogging environment of today, of course, to ask for help stopping such news from leaking is like asking to hold back the ocean waves. External optics on Ling’s departure clearly became too much of a focus of Sandberg, Schrage and others.

More to the point, although he did consider delaying acceptance of the job at Google, even though there were other contenders for the position, Ling did not want to agree to Facebook’s messaging about his departure.

Said one Ling supporter: “How could he guarantee that someone was not going to find out and then he would have had to tell a lie about his plans? Especially, given that Facebook is the leakiest place in the Valley?”

Good point and thank goodness! Valleywag wrote about Ling lunching at Google and I wrote of the details of Ling’s new YouTube job on Friday.

Facebook sources, though, said Ling threatened to badmouth the company if they did not pony up. “He insinuated he was going to talk badly about all of us, and we did not want to deal with him acting like that,” said one source.

Sources supportive of Ling said this was not the case and that he was not ever going to impugn Facebook, although Ling was, of course, unhappy.

“Why they didn’t give him some credit for his work and align his interests with theirs by being more generous is a mystery to all of us,” said one Facebook exec, who noted that Ling was prominently featured onstage in the most recent rollout of platform changes at Facebook. “His fall from grace makes you think anyone could go from valued employee to bum pretty quickly.”

Other sources at Facebook disagree, noting Ling was simply a hire who did not pan out as expected and that the fault was in not dealing with the issue sooner.

They also note that the company would never have agreed to put Ling prominently onstage if they had known he was considering a move to Google.

But once again, if Facebook was unhappy with Ling’s work, why put him onstage at all?

It’s hard to get a good answer to that question, which–to me–underscores the disorganization around Ling’s leaving.

“Ben is a really smart guy and Google is probably a better place for him,” said one Facebook exec. “He will probably do well, but he did not do well here.”

Actually, neither Facebook nor Ling did very well in dealing with the disintegration of the relationship.

Ling got a new job at YouTube and a fat signing bonus, but no Facebook shares, some of which he probably deserved for his work on the platform.

And Facebook learned yet another hard lesson about growing up. It is doubtless going to be one of many, many to come.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

It looks like Facebook will definitely be moving from its funky multi- building setup in downtown Palo Alto, Calif., to a centralized campus in Silicon Valley by early next year, said several sources.

The high-profile social networking company–which has been undergoing a major managerial shift of late, as it matures from its start-up status to that of a more established Web player–has been growing quickly–to almost 600 employees today from a couple hundred last year.

It is not clear when the move will take place, but sources said it is likely to start by the beginning of next year, as there are multiple permits, design issues and other logistical issues to resolve.

But, one thing is clear: Facebook will relocate its Palo Alto-based HQ–scattered in about five buildings throughout the suburban town–to a single location.

New HQ possibilities include, first and foremost, the old Hewlett-Packard buildings on Page Mill Road, nearby to the west of Palo Alto.

Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg prefers to remain near Palo Alto, sources said.

But Facebook has also been looking at locations in Mountain View and Sunnyvale, further south, as well as also considering a San Francisco location in the city’s recently redeveloped Mission Bay area.

Until now, Facebook has expanded by filling up rented buildings throughout Palo Alto, the picturesque town right next to Stanford University.

The appeal of being located in Palo Alto–full of shops, restaurants movies and also within walking distance of the main train station into San Francisco–has been a draw for its employees, who have, until recently, gotten some rental subsidies for being located near its offices.

But–as it has grown–Facebook’s presence in town has also become a problem for it and also the town’s citizens, as its swarms of employees have taken up too much space and parking in the increasingly crowded streets.

Growing further in Palo Alto is almost impossible, given the lack of office space and the higher expense, compared to the more typical office-park setups off Highway 101 in Silicon Valley that most Internet companies settle into.

Given Facebook’s plans to grow to 1,000 employees by the end of this year, it’s not a surprise that managers would be thinking of the next home for the company, making a move that is typical for most start-ups.

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO brought in from Google (GOOG) recently, saw such a thing happen to the search giant, which now has a large campus called the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.

Over the past six months, there has been a lot of upgrading of Facebook’s looser culture to bring it up to a more professional operation it needs to be if it wants to IPO at some point.

That has meant a lot of internal rejiggering, as well as what BoomTown can only describe as a maturing of its frat-like culture.

There have also been departures of several of its early employees, which also always happens as start-ups mature. Those who have left include: former top exec Owen Van Natta and CTO Adam D’Angelo.

And, just last week, Matt Cohler, its VP of Product Management and longtime adviser to Zuckerberg, announced he will leave Facebook in the fall to become a venture capital partner at Benchmark Capital.

In a move BoomTown is still trying to noodle over, longtime Facebook exec Matt Cohler (pictured here) will be leaving the social networking site to become a general partner at Benchmark Capital.

Cohler, who is currently Facebook’s VP of Product Management, was one of its earliest hires and, as I wrote once, seemed like “the Yoda figure at Facebook to me.”

He will not leave the prominent social-networking company until the fall, even though Cohler is already featured on the venture capital firm’s Web site.

And, after he goes, Cohler will remain as a “special adviser”–is that like a special guest star on a television show a la Heather Locklear?–to Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and senior management.

It is a great get for Benchmark to grab Cohler, of course, who will be its youngest partner ever.

And while the venture firm was the hot shop in the Web 1.0 era, it has not been as prominent a partner in the Web 2.0 space, although Benchmark does have investments in sites like Yelp and Zillow.

A New Yorker, Cohler went to Yale, worked in China, was a management consultant at McKinsey and was also part of LinkedIn’s founding team.

(You know, the LinkedIn that just got $53 million in funding for a $1 billion valuation.)

As I also wrote once: “And don’t be fooled by the baby-faced looks–he apparently worked for a year as a jazz musician in Europe and, therefore, is a hep cat.”

Hep cat or not, he has been one of Facebook’s and Zuckerberg’s closer advisers from its earliest days and his departure will be scrutinized internally and externally.

The big question? Is the move COO Sheryl Sandberg cleaning house of old Facebookers or does the smooth Cohler–who already looks like a VC–simply want to be part of the larger mix in Silicon Valley?

Sources tell me the latter, as Sandberg and Cohler got along well with the recent transition in management at Facebook (some execs, not so much).

In fact, Sandberg tried to get Cohler to stay, said these sources.

In a twist on that, it was Cohler who was one of the key execs in recruiting former top Google (GOOG) exec Sandberg into Facebook.

But it is true that, as is typical as start-ups mature, a lot of longtime execs have left and still more will likely be leaving, as more professional managers arrive.

Former top exec Owen Van Natta left in February, and CTO Adam D’Angelo, who has been friends with Zuckerberg since high school, departed recently.

Cohler said, in an interview this morning with BoomTown, that he was content at Facebook and would not have left had he not been approached by Benchmark’s Peter Fenton recently.

Fenton came there from Accel Partners in 2006, by the way, for those keeping track, and Accel is Facebook’s largest VC investor.

And who says Silicon Valley is like a well-paid game of not-so-musical chairs?

“I would be staying at Facebook happily had this not come along… but it made sense to me,” said Cohler. “It was hard to leave, as I really am excited about what’s going on at Facebook.”

But Cohler did note the shift at Facebook from hot start-up to a more established player.

“Looking back at everything I have done [at Facebook]…I am a generalist and can cover all the bases and when the company was small, that was useful,” he said. “But I really find it interesting working with great entrepreneurs and that is also something I love to do.”

At Benchmark, Cohler said he will focus on Internet start-ups, obviously, and said he is especially interested in the mobile sector.

Benchmark partner Bill Gurley noted that bringing Cohler is in keeping with the venture firm’s focus on staying current with the typically younger entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

Gurley himself joined Benchmark at 33 and Fenton at 32.

“It is critical to stay relevant and one of those ways is to keep bringing younger people into our ranks,” said Gurley. “And if you had to say who would be best person in his generation to make a great VC, it would be Matt, who is one of the most networked persons in the Web 2.0.”

Also said Gurley, pointing to Cohler’s involvement in two of the Web’s recent hits, Facebook and LinkedIn, he added: “It takes a lot of judgment to get in front of trends like that.”

While it is not yet clear exactly what kind of business case study Facebook will turn out to be in the end–a raging success or a raging something else entirely–that has not stopped Harvard from feting the hot and hyped social-networking site.

That would be the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California, which will bestow upon Facebook its 30th Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award on June 17 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport.

Apparently, the glamour never stops for CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg, who will be at the event, leading the crowd “through Facebook’s remarkable journey.”

Well, that’s all BoomTown needed to hear, immediately ponying up the $225 for a seat for non-members (although we briefly contemplated the $10,000 “Centennial” table for six, which includes a private reception and preferred seating).

While neither Zuckerberg nor I have the fancy degrees–he dropped out of Harvard as an undergrad and I did not have a prayer of getting in in the first place–Facebook’s leadership is chock full of Harvard graduates.

(Much to the chagrin, I might add, of some of Facebook’s less collegiately endowed types, who sometimes grumble to me about the tony school’s influence there, much in the same way some at Google complain about MIT and Stanford.)

In any case, COO Sheryl Sandberg must have scored 800s on her SATs (BoomTown: a decent 720 in English and a less-impressive 640 in math, as near as I can remember)!

According to Facebook’s Web site, she “holds a master’s degree in business administration with highest distinction from the Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in economics from Harvard University.”

Meanwhile, new PR honcho Elliot Schrage “has been a contributor to the Harvard Business Review…holds a bachelors degree from Harvard College, a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.”

And let’s not leave out CFO Gideon Yu, who “holds a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School,” while VP of Product Management Matt Cohler’s “writings on the start-up economy have been published in Harvard Business Review.”

Here’s hoping some of this Harvard brain power rubs off on me over dinner!

And, using any excuse to post two video highlight reels from our recent sixth D: All Things Digital conference, here’s Zuckerberg and Sandberg in action, somehow withstanding my withering questions last week:

Part One

Part Two

Dear Sheryl,

First off, I hope you had a nice first day at Facebook as the new COO, or, as BoomTown is going to call you forthwith: Where-The-Buck-Now- Stops.

Now that you have been issued your official social-networking company flip-flops and gotten your arms around the Beacon issue (here’s a Cliff Note on that debacle for you: AVOID!), I am here at the head of the complaints line, ready to start yammering on.

And today’s yammer? For the love of SuperPokes, please fix Facebook’s mail!

While I know this is not in your purview (products are under Matt Cohler, who is under Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whom you are under), I really don’t care.

All I know is that it is a major problem within the Facebook service and its continued lameness will eventually strain your audience’s patience and, ultimately, its size. And a smaller audience means less advertising–which is your sweet spot!

If you don’t believe me, see where the lack of innovation with AOL’s (TWX) email service–which was once dominant–led. Hotmail (MSFT), Yahoo Mail (YHOO), Gmail (GOOG).

Why? Well, you could not do anything good with the mail, which was trapped inside AOL (the original blockers of data portability) and very few good options were available to save, store and manipulate it within the closed AOL service.

And there are even fewer features in your closed service. I cannot move the mail. I cannot sort it. I cannot search it. I cannot move it here and there.

What can I do? I can “Mark It As Unread,” “Mark It As Read” and “Delete” it. Wheeeeeee.

Currently, for example, I have 154 messages waiting for me in my Facebook email box that I cannot be bothered to open. Why?

Well, I already get alerted to them in my regular mail in full text, so why bother? Usually, I ask Facebook emailers to send me email directly to my regular email address in my reply.

As for sent mail? I can add a video, or share a link or send a gift (no, I am not sending you a digital ice cream cone ever!) and little else.

And while I know you have announced a soon-to-appear chat feature, it sounds suspiciously as under-featured at launch as your mail is now.

It apparently cannot be seen outside Facebook and will not integrate with popular services like AIM, third-party apps cannot be built on it and it is one-on-one only.

You can see the problem here. While I realize you would rather focus on more youth-loving stuff like your Wall (we’ll get to that later), it still seems as if top-notch communications apps should be a priority at Facebook if it wants to become, as Zuckerberg has said many times, my “social utility.”

And right now, mail–at least–is pretty useless.

Tomorrow: Data portability!

The three-day conference focuses on digital innovation, science and culture. It is chaired by publisher Hubert Burda and serial Israeli investor Joseph Vardi and hosted by Stephanie Czerny and Marcel Reichart.

I was here to interview Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. In our session this afternoon, we talked about digital tools to improve reporting on human-rights abuses, the situation in China for U.S. Web companies like Yahoo and Google, along with what techies can do to help in this important arena.

I also hung around the conference and schmoozed, Eurostyle!, with a lot of folks, including Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis, BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis and Vardi.

There is also some video from an interesting social-networking panel, featuring Matt Cohler of Facebook, Lars Hinrichs of Xing and Joanna Shields of Bebo.

Added bonus: I also got the no-comment-hand-over-camera move from Facebook’s Brandee Barker, but a promise of German beer!

Here’s the video:

I am now at the DLD conference in Munich, which is put on by Hubert Burda Media, a gathering that has become one of Europe’s most interesting in recent years.

The three-day DLD–which stands for Digital, Life, Design–focuses on digital innovation, science and culture and has the most cosmopolitan audience of any conference out there.

It is chaired by publisher Hubert Burda and serial Israeli investor Joseph Vardi and hosted by Stephanie Czerny and Marcel Reichart.

It is interesting to be here to garner a lot of different viewpoints from outside the U.S., and I will be visiting a lot of German Web start-ups over the next week.

There is also a lot of Olympic-level schmoozing, of course, since there are precious few such events in Europe compared to the conference-crazy U.S.

There are also, of course, a lot of the usual suspects from the States and especially Silicon Valley.

So far this morning, I have run into folks like former Microsoftie Linda Stone, Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz, writer and entrepreneur Esther Dyson, Facebook’s Matt Cohler and, yes, Martha Stewart (who needs no introduction).

I am also here to interview onstage for DLD today Kenneth Roth (pictured here), longtime executive director of Human Rights Watch, which investigates, reports on and seeks to curb human-rights abuses in some 70 countries.

To say I am out of my league in interviewing such a serious and substantive figure is an understatement, especially given that I spend all my time contemplating the monetization of widgets (to be more specific, the non-monetization), the fate of content on the Web and the exact date the hype of social networking will end.

Still, I will give it my best effort and perhaps focus on the use of digital tools to get information and stories of heinous injustices out worldwide. After all, the Web has to be more than SuperPoking and dumb online videos on cats skateboarding.

Our session is aptly named: “Inconvenient Stories.”

My favorite kind.

Video, of course, to follow.

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.

OK, for those who refuse to live in a little place I like to call reality, let’s review the news coming out of eBay yesterday regarding its 2005 acquisition of Skype for the then unheard-of price of $2.6 billion.

The Internet auction giant declared the purchase of the once hot online telephone start-up a dud yesterday, taking an asset-impairment charge of $1.43 billion for the deal.

In addition, Skype founder and CEO Niklas Zennström was out. The move, said eBay in a filing, represented “updated long-term financial outlook for Skype.”

Quickie translation: Major buyer’s remorse.

While Zennström said he was “proud” of Skype’s performance of late (it has grown its users and revenue), the fact of the matter is eBay could not spin straw into gold with the acquisition and make the kind of money its lofty economics required for the once-hot VOIP leader. Thus, eBay only had to also fork over one-third of its $1.7 billion payout to investors, too.

While many were saying all this was due to who bought Skype–maybe it was eBay’s fault and other potential acquirers could have done better–Skype was once thought of as a giant killer in the telephony world, with many going on and on about its vast potential.

Sound familiar? Before Facebook sky-high valuation fans go nuts, I know there is a difference between the economics of a Web phone service and that of an ad-based, possibly target-rich interactive online environment.

But there was an awful lot of hype, I mean, hope back in 2005 that Skype could easily turn into a massive moneymaker by selling a wide range of goods and services beyond its core Internet calls offering.

Because advertisers and other services could target its motivated and highly trackable users, went the story, that meant the possibility of ladling on more revenue and profits.

In fact, by leveraging Skype’s exploding popularity, eBay had hoped to add premium offerings like conference calls and links to its own vast networks of sellers on its flagship auction site. There was a user-generated Yellow Pages and even an offering called Skype Prime that allowed callers to charge a variety of services.

All good ideas that just did not pan out with quite the results expected, all directly due to the exorbitant sum overpaid for Skype.

Revenues for Skype were only $90 million in the most recent quarter (out of eBay’s overall $1.83 billion), despite its adding 75 million more users since the acquisition to total 220 million.

As I wrote about Facebook’s talks with a variety of investors that value it at upward of $10 billion, Skype was a story about the difference between potential and actual when faced with the real-world difficulties of making a popular Web site into a truly profitable and sustainable business.

I am not sure how I managed to get to be the little rain cloud at the Facebook parade, but the simple act of questioning the possibility that it might not make the kind of money its cheerleaders envision, especially in light of the Skype write-down, seems prudent.

We all know it’s admirable–even astonishing–that its founder Mark Zuckerberg and his small team have grown the terrific and vibrant social-networking service into a 40 million-plus user base and growing with plenty of promise with regard to new kinds of advertising paradigm.

But the business, as it stands today, only has about $30 million in profits on $150 million in revenue.

More importantly, half that revenue comes from a sweetheart guaranteed revenue deal with its ad-partner Microsoft, which still is a non-economic wash for the software giant more interested in planting a flag and paying for some pricey education in the social-networking sector.

That has not stopped Microsoft from offering Facebook, according to sources close to the company, investment dollars in the hundreds of millions for a small stake.

Said those familiar with the most recent offer, such an investment would include a possible right to buy the company should Facebook decide an all-out acquisition is the way to go (doubtlessly a Microsoft preference).

Sources note that Microsoft is now blowing hot and cold about such a deal, which is being championed by CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who lends the Seattle behemoth some much-needed Silicon Valley cred.

At Facebook, Zuckerberg is key to the talks, helped by such advisers as VPs Owen Van Natta and Matt Cohler and CFO Gideon Yu (whom we like to call “Death Cat” for his uncanny ability to cuddle up to hot Internet start-ups, much like that nursing-home feline who can sense death).

According to sources, Microsoft remains obsessed with keeping rival Google out of the picture and positing that the search part of the Facebook phenomenon is where the real gold is located.

While adding more robust search to the site seems fine, Facebook execs do not consider it a killer app and are perplexed by Ballmer’s laser focus on it in recent talks.

“We don’t want to be taken in by the siren song of search,” said one.

That’s especially true given the engaged nature of its users while on the site with, well, the site. After all, you don’t really want to search when you are hard at work stalking your “friends” on Facebook.

All kidding aside, that kind of motivated user is what has kept suitors lining up, including solo visits to Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, Calif., by Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang (inquiring about doing some sort of deal–after its botched acquisition effort from last year–such as taking over Facebook’s international ad-serving business).

So, too, has Google come on by, not necessarily to invest in or buy Facebook, but to look more closely at a variety of ad and apps plays on the service (and, you have to guess, to drive Microsoft bonkers).

And others in droves, such as a recent visit by Viacom head Philippe Dauman, who just wanted to say hello to the Facebookers.

In all this hubbub, one has to wonder what Facebook wants and needs?

Here’s my educated and reported guess:

1. A redo of its ad deal with Microsoft, getting even more guaranteed dollars and more latitude over its own sales efforts. An extension would be fine, I guess, but perhaps not, given interest from others to sign up Facebook and make friends with it.

2. An international ad partner, although I don’t expect Facebook to hand over the store here in this critical arena for itself. While the site’s U.S. growth has been strong, its international aspirations will be key to its long-term success.

Possible partners here are obvious: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft.

3. An investment on its terms and not necessarily with Microsoft or Google or whatever giant media company that comes calling with glad hands and lots of shiny baubles to offer.

What Facebook must do is evaluate which partner actually benefits its goals of further growing its member base here and abroad, gives it access to new marketing opportunities and forks over the unencumbered cash and advice to create or buy new assets it needs to continually improve itself.

4. Zuckerberg has got to be looking at what happened over there at rival MySpace and probably wants to do things a little differently. While MySpace has grown a lot since its purchase by News Corp., it’s an open secret its founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson think they sold too soon and now are angling to be better compensated.

In addition, it’s nicer to be in charge of your own fate, if you can pull it off. Because even if Microsoft or any other buyer promises total freedom, when you sell (especially to an already public company), you instantly become an employee–a well-paid one, to be certain–and your fate is no longer in your hands.

And, like Skype’s Zennström, that fate can be “updated” once performance falls off. Which it will.

5. I think that Facebook is well positioned to stay independent and not sell at all, although it is clear it thinks taking big money is a good idea.

I am not so sure it is, for a lot of reasons (not the least of which are the complications now surrounding the valuation of its stock options–Section 409A!–and the ability to attract talent with a good package).

But if Facebook can pull it off in a way that gives it running room and relative freedom, I can hardly imagine it will resist.

“We’re not stupid over here, we want the right deal at the right time that fits into the right thing for us,” said one exec there.

Right.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

So we are all up to date, here is the new–and much more helpful–Facebook page on top management.

And it seems now that all the executives at the hotter-than-ever social-networking company have become simple vice presidents (although some get extra titles, too).

While some were already VPs, it appears to all be part of a novel attempt at title deflation that is kind of admirable. No EVPs or SVPs or presidents or anything else.

While too many of the execs appear to be in charge of operations of some sort, it feels a bit clearer than before. And it definitely positions all the execs on the exact same level (almost like some commune!).

This was all set in motion, of course, with the recent downgrade in title of COO Owen Van Natta.

Of course, there is one who rules above all with the big title: Chief Executive Officer and Founder Mark Zuckerberg or, as I plan to call him when I see him next, the Man.

So, after the jump, is that skinny with pictures, of course, which is slightly different than when I posted my own Facebook of Facebook execs:

Mark Zuckerberg remains CEO and founder.

Owen Van Natta was COO and is now vice president of operations and chief revenue officer.

Chamath Palihapitiya is now vice president of product marketing and operations.

Matt Cohler is now vice president of strategy and operations.

Gideon Yu is now vice president and chief financial officer (and I like to call him Death Cat, too, because he is like that cat named Oscar for his unusual ability to get a sweet job at the hot Web company of the moment at just the right time).

Dustin Moskovitz is now co-founder and vice president of engineering.

Adam D’Angelo is now vice president and chief technology officer.

I also gave a rundown of all the top execs at the fast-growing social-networking company and their duties (there are an awful lot of vice presidents with operations in their title, which I shall leave to another post to parse).

But, silly me, this is Facebook after all, and I forgot the photos of each of the members of co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s brain trust, who will presumably make the popular site hugely profitable and an inevitable part of every man, woman and child’s life on the planet.

Right, boys? (Because there are no ladies in this group.)

So here’s the dream team head shots and a little background on each below the photos from their bios on the site and elsewhere.

Mark Zuckerberg needs no introduction these days what with all the magazine covers and morning news shows. My mother knows who he is now and my mother can hardly turn on a computer. But let’s try, shall we?: Harvard. Almost Quarterlifer. Co-founder. Flip-flop wearer. Genuine visionary with potentially Gatesian dreams of dominance over all he surveys. I think that about covers it.

Owen Van Natta was COO and is now, as I said above, chief revenue officer and vice president of operations, where he is in charge of important parts of the business, like ad sales and other money-making efforts. Van Natta came to Facebook from his stint at Amazon.com, where he held the weighty title of vice president of worldwide business and corporate development and also was part of the founding team of its A9.com site. With a handsome surfer-dude look, is it any surprise he went to college at the University of California at Santa Cruz?

Chamath Palihapitiya, who was born in Sri Lanka and was raised in Canada, was recently hired as Facebook’s vice president of marketing and operations. The former AOLer, where he was in charge of its instant-messaging division, is widely credited with turning it around. He also did a stint after AOL at the Mayfield Fund, where he waxed on in a section of its Web site about his love of poker, noting that he regularly played, “very high-limit or no-limit hold ‘em games in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and have played against many of today’s top pros.” We like him already.

Matt Cohler, vice president of strategy and business operations, was one of Facebook’s earliest hires and feels like the Yoda figure at Facebook to me (he is also in charge of the critical international expansion). A New Yorker, he went to Yale, worked in China, was a management consultant at McKinsey and was also part of LinkedIn’s founding team. And don’t be fooled by the baby-faced looks–he apparently worked for a year as a jazz musician in Europe and, therefore, is a hep cat.

Gideon Yu is also a recent hire at Facebook as its chief financial officer. Like that cat named Oscar who can detect death, Yu seems to have an amazing ability to get a sweet job at the hot Web company of the moment at just the right time. Case in point: He left Yahoo as its treasurer and went to YouTube as its CFO just a month before it sold to Google for $1.6 billion, a deal in which Yu apparently played a key role. Then, on his way to a spot as a junior partner at also-hot VC firm Sequoia Partners, he grabbed the Facebook CFO job in July. I say we watch where Yu goes and follow stealthily behind so as not to be detected.

Is it just me or does Dustin Moskovitz remind you of cuddly actor Seth Rogen from “Knocked Up” with his hair cut short? As Facebook’s vice president of product engineering, he oversees the site’s architecture and more (like mobile strategy and development). More importantly, the economics major shared that Harvard dorm room with Zuckerberg, where they and others created the service (while most other people’s college dorm mates basically drank beer and passed out).

Last but not least, Chief Technology Officer Adam D’Angelo, a longtime Zuckerberg pal. He’s in charge of keeping Facebook from breaking apart as it grows, kind of like Scotty in “Star Trek.” But there’s no warp drive that can save the site from all those surly college students and surlier Silicon Valley types if it all went kerflooey. His Facebook bio says the computer-science grad from the California Institute of Technology was one of the “top 24 finalists in the Topcoder Collegiate Challenge, which tests the ability to design and implement complex algorithms in a timed environment.” Color me impressed, even though I have no idea what that means.

In any case, I look forward to meeting you one and all.