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SNL meets Mark Zuckerberg.

In a surprise move that has shocked Silicon Valley, young Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will guest host an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live, according to multiple sources.

The mild-mannered Zuckerberg, best-known for vanilla-flavored speeches filled with talking points about "the social graph" and "making communication more efficient," will provide the opening monologue as well as appear in a number of sketches on the NBC show's April 5 episode.

Appearing on the sketch comedy show is something Zuckerberg has wanted to do for a long time, a close friend confided to CNET News.com. "Mark actually has really good comic timing," the friend said on condition of anonymity, out of the fear that Zuckerberg might "de-friend" him on Facebook if his identity were revealed. "He's got this totally hilarious side that nobody ever gets to see, except his stuffed animals and sometimes his investors. Ever since Justin Timberlake did that sweet music video on the show, he's been aching to go on SNL. He had his assistant call up NBC but they were all like, 'Mark who?'"

The friend continued, "Now that he's been on 60 Minutes and that Forbes billionaire list and everybody's heard of him, SNL has finally agreed to let him come on the show. When he got the call he was so happy he poked everybody on his Facebook friends list." Zuckerberg was reportedly even more excited that the musical guest for the April 5 show will be his favorite "emo" band, Panic at the Disco.

Shouldn't Zuckerberg be in the green room already?

(Credit: Facebook)

The famously shy and awkward Zuckerberg has been warming up to the press recently, but this is still an unexpected move. Wall Street analysts, when asked whether they thought this would help or hurt Facebook's potential valuation as it reportedly heads toward an initial public offering, were left more or less speechless. "I guess it couldn't hurt, unless he really f***s it up," one Deutsche Bank analyst commented.

Sources close to NBC have confirmed that the 23-year-old CEO will be acting in a parody of his disastrous South by Southwest interview with BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy. "This time, people are going to be throwing stuff at them," one source said. "Apparently they're going to have a lightsaber fight, too."

Lacy will be portrayed by SNL regular Andy Samberg.

Zuckerberg will also play "a crazed Barack Obama supporter" in another sketch, according to script details leaked to News.com. His role in a third sketch is less clear, but the costume department has reportedly been asked to create a "pink polka-dotted fur suit" that fits Zuckerberg's compact frame.

Reports that Zuckerberg would also be sporting drag and portraying John McCain's wife could not be confirmed at the time of publication. "But he's definitely going to be playing a girl in something," a Facebook colleague hinted. "He's been working on his falsetto in board meetings."

Editor's note: Remember, today is April 1, a day reserved in the U.S. for some levity.

Caption: This partially redacted screen snapshot of Intellipedia, a Wikipedia-like site used by the U.S. intelligence community, hints at the severity of edit wars between executive branch agencies.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--It turns out that the federal government's Intellipedia, a classified Wikipedia just for spies and spooks, is as prone to altercations as is its public counterpart.

The latest edit war on the top-secret Web site started with the "Best Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode" entry, which CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed would be the acclaimed episode in which a series of human heart-gathering demons cast a spell to steal everyone's voices.

Then, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Vice President Dick Cheney reverted the classified Intellipedia entry to the earlier version that listed the Buffy musical "Once More, With Feeling" as the top choice. "The juxtaposition of Buffy's emotional dependence on her mentor and the interpretive dance number was deeply moving," Cheney said. "Plus there was some serious blood and gore toward the end."

Internecine warfare in the executive branch has frequently broken out on Intellipedia, which hosts approximately 40,000 users and 35,000 articles, an estimated 50 of which discuss Iraq, terrorism, and national security. Google has a $350 million contract with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Intelligence Community Enterprise Services in Ft. Meade, Md., to provide servers and search services for Intellipedia, which has been cloaked in secrecy until now. (Access to articles requires Intelink, JWICS, or SIPRNet, the intelligence community's secure networks.)

Other topics of editorial disagreement have included the long-running Osama vs. Usama spelling debate pitting the CIA against the Justice Department, which of the supernatural sisters (one played by Rose McGowan from 2001 to 2006, and the other by Shannen Doherty from 1998 to 2001) on the Charmed television show was hotter, and whether the new Knight Rider series could be "even half as cool" as the iconic original starring K.I.T.T. and David Hasselhoff.

"K.I.T.T.'s Tri-Helical Plasteel 1000 molecular bonded shell and hydrogen-fueled turbine engine could clearly kick the ass of a Ford Mustang that has only 540 HP," the vice president wrote in a discussion accompanying one classified Intellipedia entry. "The new K.I.T.T. isn't even a Trans Am. Sheesh."

One source close to the intelligence community blamed Cheney for defacing the Intellipedia entry on the forthcoming Speed Racer film, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. The culprit, who was traced by Internet Protocol address to the Office of the Vice President, posted: "This is going to bomb like Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Any remake without the original Defensor mode is clearly inferior."

"The vice president abhors remakes," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the vice president's taste in films. "You should have seen how he savaged the Transformers movie entry. We ended up locking that for weeks and blaming it on (former Attorney General) Al (Gonzales) after he quit."

One of the most innovative Intellipedia features is its multimedia component. Popular entries include Windows Media videos of satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office depicting intimate encounters between Pamela Anderson and ex-husband Tommy Lee. Another top 10 entry features racy e-mail attachments exchanged between actress Jessica Alba and fiance Cash Warren--intercepted by the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program.

"Such tools enable experts from different disciplines to pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments," J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate in September. "It's true that we now are intercepting sex videos that Americans create in the privacy of their own home--9/11 really did mean that everything has changed."

Another intelligence community project, A-Space, is known as a Facebook and MySpace for spies. Apart from a brief surge of interest when it launched in December, usage has dropped off significantly in the last few months.

"It was fine until Condoleezza Rice got on, and then started sending everyone A-Space 'friend' requests," said Homeland Security assistant secretary Stewart Baker. "Like, what do you do, say 'no' to the secretary of state? Then you start getting all these status updates about 'transnational diplomacy' and Ferragamo pumps and your in-box is clogged pretty quickly."

[Editor's note: Remember, today is April 1, a day reserved in the U.S. for some levity.]

In a stunning move that caught the blogosphere off-guard, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington announced Monday that his fast-growing blog empire is acquiring the venerable teen magazine and Web site Tiger Beat from the magazine's parent company, Laufer Media.

Exact terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Arrington made it clear he intends to shut down the magazine and go online-only with Tiger Beat, which tech reporters covering the news Monday discovered is actually called Bop Tiger Beat. Within the next 30 days, the site will be renamed CrunchKids.

Move over, Hannah Montana. There's a new kid in town.

"It's the perfect fit for us," Arrington said in a blog post announcing the deal. "I've always thought Big Tobacco had it right: Get 'em while they're young. But instead of polluting their lungs, we're just going to pollute their minds. And really, at some point, like when they're 14 or so, they'll get tired of discussing teen news and focus on what I can bring to the table: deep discussions about late-round financing of important new Web 2.0 sites, new services, and TechCrunch's dream of a $1 billion payday."

Arrington wrote that he believes there is terrific synergy between his knowledge of social networking sites such as Facebook and MyYearbook and the Tiger Beat editorial staff's knowledge of important pre-teen and teen news such as the hilarious new video posted by the Jonas Brothers on YouTube.

Arrington's post, written at 3:24 a.m., goes on for an additional 2,132 words and outlines his plans for the new company, along with angry words on mainstream media and the tech industry's failure to understand the importance of the pre-teen and teen market.

"When I left Silicon Valley the first time around, I assumed someone would truly innovate around pre-teens and teens. Sure, there have been some efforts, Hello Kitty cell phones and other accessories immediately come to mind. But for the most part it's been hugely disappointing," Arrington wrote. "So screw it. I'm cashing in."

Not surprisingly, TechCrunch's move has roiled the blogging community. "What Tiger Beat does is not blogging; it's gossip news targeting a teen and pre-teen audience," wrote sometime Arrington friend (and sometime Arrington foil) Dave Winer. "It is endlessly frustrating to me that people should want to make money off what they write. And making money off what they write for pre-teen and teen girls is even more offensive."

The Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag was even more scathing in its careful critique of the merged sites' potential. "It sucks," wrote one Valleywag commenter who was believed to be older than a pre-teen. "Arrington can't go out in the sun without SPF 45. So how's he going to look side-by-side on a Web site with the likes of dreamy Zac Efron and Chace Crawford? That's right, he'll look terrible. This is dumb. Arrington sucks."

But Arrington said in a brief interview with CNET News.com that he isn't discouraged and will go after the pre-teen and teen market with the same gusto he has the technology industry. Already, he has planned meet-ups hosted by pre-teen bloggers scheduled to coincide with 11-year-old Mackenzie Dwyer's slumber party in Chevy Chase, Md., this Saturday night and the junior high dance the following weekend in Oak Park, Ill.

"As you can tell by the geographies we're taking our road show to, we're going after the kids with parents with piles of cash," Arrington said. "Ultimately, the pre-teen market is all about innovation and targeting the right audience, and I challenge anyone--Sony, Warner Bros., even those dinosaurs at Disney--to understand this market as well as me and my new partners at Tiger Beat."

We're going to win this fight," he added. "It will be long and it will be tough. But is Disney willing to get out of bed at 4 a.m. to dig into the rumor that Miley Cyrus was grounded again? I am. I will make that commitment."

Editor's note: Remember, tomorrow is April 1, a day reserved in the U.S. for some levity. Happy April Fools' Day.