Gossip

Ten years ago, or even five years ago, most people would have reacted with disbelief if told that shortly some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley and Hollywood would be in a madcap race to get a piece of companies that facilitate the purchasing of virtual pink tractors.

But that's exactly what's happening in the world of social gaming. The companies that make games with names like Sorority Life, FarmVille, and Pet Society have become some of the most sought-after in the digital-media industry, and now huge companies are starting to take sides. We already knew that … Read more

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's interview on "ABC World News" on Wednesday night was pretty boring. But according to one hilarious rumor Thursday, the 26-year-old founder will soon be showing up on a very different kind of prime-time television.

Apparently he will be voicing a cartoon version of himself in a cameo appearance on "The Simpsons."

New York Magazine's pop-culture blog Vulture claims to have heard this much: "Lisa (Simpson) decides to help fund Nelson's new bike company. While attending an entrepreneurs convention, the two encounter Zuckerberg, who reminds the kids just how … Read more

Of course the tech industry crowd is giddy over the full theatrical trailer for David Fincher's "The Social Network"--it's a tale of one of Silicon Valley's own, however ignominious its take on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be, and it looks to be of far higher quality than the few stabs at dot-com cinema storytelling that have bubbled up over the years. ("The Pirates of Silicon Valley" was decent, for a made-for-cable-TV movie; the Josh Hartnett flick "August," about a New York dot-com flop, was a flop itself.)

But what … Read more

There was a slew of news on Wednesday and Thursday about the increasingly hyped film "The Social Network," the movie based on Facebook's origins that hits theaters on October 1.

First, in advance of its theatrical release, Columbia Pictures' "The Social Network" will be premiering at the New York Film Festival--it'll be the festival opener on September 24. Richard Pena, the selection committee chair and program director for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which puts on the annual festival, sounded very impressed in an announcement posted to its Web site.

"It's … Read more

"YOU DON'T GET TO 500 MILLION FRIENDS WITHOUT MAKING A FEW ENEMIES," reads the tagline on the first official poster for "The Social Network," the upcoming Columbia Pictures film about the origins of Facebook.

The all-caps text covers the entire poster, superimposed over the face of young actor Jesse Eisenberg, who wears an expression of awe on the cusp of metamorphosing into malevolence. In "The Social Network," due in theaters this October, Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard University and ultimately turned it into a digital … Read more

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong may finally have made good on his promise to figure out what to do with Bebo, the company's pricey digital albatross, by the end of the spring.

Mashable reported on Wednesday morning that Bebo had been sold; The Wall Street Journal followed up later in the day by saying that the deal is "close" but not complete and that the buyer is Criterion Capital Partners, a hedge fund based in Studio City, Calif. An AOL representative did not respond to a request for comment; a price isn't yet clear, but the Journal … Read more

It's summer. It's the time of year when us business reporters are more likely to grudgingly (or not-so-grudgingly) refer to a day as a "slow news day," when CEOs are languishing on the decks of their yachts, when legislative bodies are more likely to be out of session. It's the season when we start wallowing in the quicksand of C-list celebrity deaths and even "X-Files"-caliber cryptozoology--as when, two years ago, gossip outlet Gawker became ensconced in the mystery surrounding the "Montauk Monster," a bizarre carcass that washed ashore on a … Read more

Recent changes to Facebook's privacy controls, as well as a litany of new products that share more user and demographic information with third-party partners, are ticking off a lot of users.

Weblogs and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis recently joined GDGT founder Peter Rojas and prominent Googler Matt Cutts in the ranks of notable tech industry figures who have announced that they're deleting their profiles altogether. Rumors have been swirling about internal disputes at Facebook over whether the company really did cross the line and whether changes should be in store.

But I'm willing to guess that a … Read more

With Facebook's security and privacy standards under fire from all sides, suffice it to say that this is not a good time for one of the company's investors to fall for a Facebook phishing scam.

On Saturday evening, a Facebook event invitation was sent to some of the over 2,300 friends of Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners venture capitalist who sits on Facebook's board of directors, asking "Would you like a Facebook phone number?" As it turned out, this was a scam: Users who entered their passwords in response to the spoof message from … Read more