Hasta La Gadget!

Poor, poor Mark Zuckerberg can’t catch a break. First Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher team up to make a movie that portrays him as kind of a, well, let’s just use the word “punk”–that’s what the bus stop posters say, so we’ll just go with that.

Now the paparazzi is running around, snapping shots of him, while he’s just minding his own business, texting while walking down a “busy street.” Okay, sure, it’s not the safest thing in the world, but let’s face it, most of us do it at some point, right?

The Daily Mail has a bunch of shots of Zuckerberg walking down the street near his home in Northern California, frantically texting his little billionaire heart out, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.

They suggest that Zuckerberg is such a workaholic that he just can’t put the phone down. Now we’re just going to suggest that he’s actually do something else, like playing Farmville or update his MySpace profile, but I think it’s best not to rule that out entirely.

A girlfriend with dubious motives. A frightened social networker. A lonely neighbor with an eye on his WiFi. Some of you are real wrecks! Luckily, so are we. Let’s commiserate. More »

This article was written on May 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

Last week we reported that Oodle Classifieds had launched a classifieds service on Facebook as the latest way for people to find or sell something.  While we thought this was going to be Facebook’s primary classifieds system, we were wrong.

Unfortunately for Oodle, Facebook just launched their own classifieds service called Facebook Marketplace. It’s integrated into the whole Facebook experience, so chances are, Oodle’s Facebook Group probably won’t be doing very well. When you go to Facebook, you’ll notice a link to the Marketplace in the left side-bar for easy navigation. 

It’s divided up into networks, just like I was hoping they would do so that when you buy, chances are it’s from someone in your area. I belong to the Iowa State and the Chicago, IL networks, so when I go to the marketplace I’m able to see what’s listed in my networks. If you belong to multiple networks, those will be tabbed up at the top so you can switch easily among them.

Marketplace:

Facebook is huge with college students, and I can see this classifieds service becoming the best way to sell text books, find an apartment to sub-lease, etc. Here’s a taste of what’s listed in my network, and I’m sure it’s similar in other networks:

• Pet Sitter! – Going on vacation this summer?
• For Sale – $10 Graduation Cap & Gown
• $65 – Physical Chemistry – A Molecular Approach (text book)

Marketplace Listing:

Listing:

If you decide that you want to list an item, all you have to do is click on “add a new listing” and from there you’re walked through the entire process. You select whether it’s something for sale, housing, jobs, or other, and then from there you select a sub-category and start entering in details. It’s a really simple process, and one that I could see many Facebook users using.

Wrapping it up:

There are a few things that concern me with Facebook’s system, with one of them being Spam. I’m not sure what system they have in place to prevent spam, but hopefully it’s a good one because it would be easy for the Marketplace to fill up with it.

And of course, another concern is rule breakers.  They’ve got a pretty lengthy guidelines page that has listing rules, prohibited items (no firecrackers, hazardous goods, etc.), and general rules and guidelines, but that doesn’t mean that everybody will follow them.

I’ve read a few bloggers saying that newspaper classifieds will really be hurting, which I could see happening, but only in college towns where students have previously turned to their college newspaper to find an apartment for rent, or to sell a textbook.

All in all, I like it.  In typical Facebook fashion, it’s a simple, clean interface that’s easy to use. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of effect, if any, that this will have on other classified services out there, both online and in print.

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Does this mark a bit of a media paradigm shift? Is the movie making process changing? In recent years, we’ve seen plenty of comic books turned into movies. And then, once the movie is released, the studio behind it unleashes all manner of social media features in an attempt to engage its target demographic.

Facebook, or the other hand, seems to be the first property that started as a social network, became a movie, and then got turned into a comic. Of course, none of these things are authorized–far from it, in fact. Mark Zuckerberg, the young billionaire that he is, would no doubt like nothing more than to have the movie based on his life vanish completely.

Of course, given the fact that Aaron Sorkin/David Fincher’s The Social Network is drawing early comparisons to Citizen-freaking-Kane of all things, that just seems like wishful thinking.

And as for this new comic from Bluewater Productions? It promises are more balanced story–offering something “in between” the movie and Zuckerberg’s own recollections. “Bluewater Productions is announcing it is filling that gap and exploring the background of the website’s founder in the medium of comic books,” the company wrote in a press release issued this week.

And what, exactly, is Bluewater? It’s no Marvel or DC, of course. The company’s publisher Darren G. Davis describes it thusly, “Bluewater is looking to tell unique stories that are just not about celebrities.”

Of course, anyone who follows the comics industry at all likely knows Bluewater as the company behind biographies of Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, whipping out quick bios of characters from headline news.

I’m sure the timing of this announcement is just a coincidence, however.

Zuckerberg: Creator of Facebook is arriving in December. It will run $6.99 for 58 “giant sized” pages.

It’s safe to assume, I think, that Steve Jobs has a pretty nice little nest egg set up for himself. And it’s not just because of all of that sweet Apple and Pixar money. I’m guessing that the Apple CEO doesn’t have all that many expenses for a rich guy.

I mean, for one thing, he’s got access to all of the computers, music players, and phones a guy could want (he probably gets a pretty good discount from AT&T, as well). Also, his wardrobe expenses are no doubt fairly low. What’s he got to buy, like 10, 15 black turtlenecks a year?

Still, even with all of these factors in place, Jobs has been passed up by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg on Forbes’s annual rich people list, the Forbes 400. Zuckerberg and Jobs now rank numbers 35 and 43, with estimated values of $6.9 and $6.1 billion, respectively.

Not that it was a bad year for Apple’s head, by any stretched–his net worth actually jumped $1 billion since last year.

Zuckerberg, for his part, recently announced that he will be donating $100 million to schools in Newark, NJ. All in all, thinks seem to be looking up for Facebook’s 26-year-old CEO. Not like they-decided-to-cancel-that-movie-about-me good. But still, pretty good.