Hasta La Gadget!

A link to a very 90s-looking Angelfire website surfaced over at Hacker News, with the poster claiming that it belongs to Mark Zuckerberg, who would have created it when he was just 15-years-old. The website is full of all sorts of interesting things, ranging from a GPA calculator for “all you psychos, myself included, who obsess over grades,” to a blinking yellow eyeball welcoming visitors to “the only site where a yellow eye blinks at you.”

The webpage is both comical and a very interesting look into the mind of a teenage Mark Zuckerberg, who was at the time promoting his Vader Fader tool and introduced himself as Slim Shady: “Hi, my name is…Slim Shady. No, really, my name is Slim Shady. Just kidding, my name is Mark.” On the Angelfire page, he invited comments via the AOL email address “Themarke51@aol.com”.

The Angelfire site is full of Java applets, and contains several pages, including one dedicated to Vader Fader, a pong game, Magnetic Poetry, a base converter, something he calls the CyberMonkey, inviting users to test the “famous monkey problem” and email him asap if they “spot a soliloquy of Hamlet”. While all of this, presented in a fairly clean manner above a solid gray background, is interesting, it is his page on “The Web” that catches the most attention.

Says young Zuckerberg on his page “The Web,”: “As of now, the web is pretty small. Hopefully, it will grow into a larger web.” And speaking of the applet, “If your name is already on The Web because someone else has chosen to be linked to you, then you may choose two additional people to be linked with.” He has certainly come a long way since that small applet, and has connected far, far more people.

Of course, there’s no guarantee this is Zuckerberg’s Angelfire site, but all signs point to the affirmative.

[via Hacker News]

Angelfire site may be Mark Zuckerberg’s first website is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It seems like Facebook is just testing out a whole bunch of new features, and it doesn’t look like it has any intention of stopping anytime soon. Today, it was discovered that Facebook is testing out a new button on the desktop version of its service. The new button appears on the top right of your Facebook page, right next to your profile link. The button pops up the “How are you feeling” post-a-status screen.

The button was first discovered by Mashable’s Alex Fitzpatrick. The button appears to be rolling out to a small test group, and it’s still up in the air about whether or not this button will be rolled out to the rest of Facebook’s users. It allows users to update their status no matter which page they’re on. So if you’re on your friend’s Facebook page, and you just thought of something you want to send to the entirety of your Facebook friends list, you can just click the button to update your status.

Many people are speculating that Facebook is borrowing its features from Twitter. The button looks awfully similar to Twitter’s “Compose a tweet” button, especially with the pop-up button over a faded background. Facebook also renamed its “subscribers” to “followers”, and is planning on implementing a hashtag feature in its service soon, a feature that was popularized by Twitter.

Alongside the upcoming addition of the “post-a-status” button, Facebook has also added an update to Facebook Events. Event planners, as well as event attendees, will now be able to see the weather conditions for their upcoming events. Facebook is also rolling out a new feature to Facebook Pages that organizes comments in more simple, threaded conversations. Facebook has been constantly testing out new features this month, so it’ll be interesting what else will pop out in the next few days.

[via Mashable]

Facebook is testing out a new button is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook has just received the “go-ahead” to build a second campus in Menlo Park. Menlo Park’s city council, minus one member, voted 4-0 to allow Facebook to build its second campus. The new campus will be a 433,555 square foot building located on the other side of Facebook’s headquarters. It will be located on 312 and 313 Constitution Drive, just west of Bayfront Expressway.

The campus will be span across 22-acres of land. It will be designed by Frank Gehry, a renowned architect known for his work on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and his work on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California. However, unlike the flashy designs Gehry made for both the Guggenheim and Walt Disney Concert Hall, the design of the Facebook campus will be much more low-key.

Gehry’s creative partner, Craig Webb, stated, “They felt some of those things were too flashy and not in keep with the kind of culture of Facebook, so they asked us to make it more anonymous.” Surprisingly, Gehry was comfortable with designing a more low-key building. Facebook’s new campus will follow an eco-friendly design. It will have a rooftop garden, be hidden by the landscape, feature a park-like entrance accessible by the public, and will have an underground tunnel that connects it to Facebook’s other campus.

Webb stated, “Our intent is that it almost becomes like a hillside.” Many of the city council members were enthusiastic about the campus’s new design. One of the members, Kirsten Keith, stated that it’s very lucky for Menlo Park to have a building designed by Frank Gehry. Another member, Rich Cline, stated that he was impressed that Facebook’s rooftop park will also have oak trees. Construction for the campus is expected to start right away, and upon completion, the campus be able to accommodate up to 3,400 Facebook staff members.

[via Mercury News]

Facebook gets approval to build a low-key second campus is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook has sent out invitations to an event on April 4 at its place in Menlo Park, California. What’s it about? We don’t know exactly, but the invite says “Come see our new home on Android,” and so the two most likely options seem to be either a new Facebook app or a Facebook-related Android operating system.

If the last prospect gets you excited, take heart: some sources have come forward to say a Facebook Phone is on the horizon. The invite is a simple tease – vague title, location, date and time – giving us just enough information to spend the next week guessing. Some sources have surfaced, however, saying that we should expect an operating system.

According to the folks over at TechCrunch, a source who previously advised them to be on the lookout for an April Facebook event has said that Facebook is going to announce an operating system. Specifically, this will be a modified Android operating system that has Facebook functionality woven throughout it, making it a one-stop-shop sort of deal for Facebook loyalists.

And, of course, what is an operating system without some hardware? The sources said that Facebook will likely be pairing its modified Android operating system with an HTC handset, model unknown. Both of those things are rumors at this point, the by-product of unnamed sources, and so don’t take it without a grain of salt. Stay tuned, and we’ll update you next week!

Facebook April 4 event invite teases Android-related announcement is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Executives from Facebook have revealed that game developers generated around $2.8 billion in revenue last year. Sean Ryan, Facebook’s Director of Game Partnerships, spoke at the Game Developers Conference trying to entice more developers to join Facebook’s gaming platform. Ryan stated, “Anywhere in the games business we are investing heavily.” Ryan rolled out a bunch of impressive statistics to get more developers on board.

The statistics showed that over 250 million people play games on Facebook each month, and that 20% of all Facebook desktop users play games daily on Facebook. In the last month alone, Facebook redirected 263 million clicks to Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play store. Since last year, game installations has increased by 75%. Over 200 games on Facebook now each have over 1 million monthly active users. Over 100 developers generated over $1 million last year. There has been a 24% increase of players who pay to play games on Facebook compared to last year.

Facebook is looking to draw even more players to its gaming platform. It’s launching a series of high-end games that it believes will attract even the hardcore gamers. These new games will feature higher-quality graphics, intensive gameplay, and more riveting storylines. They will be completely different than Facebook’s current offering of games like Farmville and Bejeweled.

Facebook is pursuing many routes in order to generate as much revenue as possible. Along with creating a more stronger gaming network, the company is also pursuing new marketing methods that may be able to help it generate more than the $4 million a day it already generates from sponsored stories. One of the new methods is targeted ads placed straight into your newsfeed. There will most likely be more changes coming down the line, so stay tuned.

[via Facebook]

Facebook game developers made $2.8B in 2012 is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.