• Romney’s page on Facebook strikes me as particularly bad for a politician who needs to connect and for a campaign that is well aware of Obama’s social media pedigree. It’s almost as if the Romney team is not really trying.
• Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy • Suggesting that Mitt Romney’s real problem is his Facebook page, which, despite over a million fans, feels a little poorly-suited for its job. Shaughnessy got a couple experts on the beat to ask their opinions on Romney’s page, and their feeling was that he was lacking “genuine engagement” — focusing on broadcasting rather than communicating with readers. “If Romney or his team took 30 minutes each day,” claims social media expert Amy Porterfield, “thanking his supporters, commenting on their posts and listening to their concerns, he would not only have a keen understanding on what people are talking about, but he would also create solid, valuable relationships with Facebook users.” The advice here goes beyond hollow-seeming presidential candidates. It’s really good for anyone with interest in social media. (Edit: Per Josh Sternberg, Shaughnessy’s a contributor to Forbes rather than a staff writer.) source

• The “blogger-not-a-journalist” thing still sticks, but … In the past few days, there’s been a bit of an uproar on the decision by a federal judge to decide, in a defamation case, that investigative blogger Crystal Cox isn’t a journalist protected by shield laws. We were ticked, too. However, Forbes reporter Kashmir Hill disputes the way the story was first presented by Seattle Weekly, which broke the story: “The facts in the case are far more complicated, and after hearing them, most journalists will not want to include Cox in their camp.” Hill points out that it appeared Cox was attempting to engage in reputation damage, not journalism, including sending out the e-mail shown above, in which Cox reportedly offered reputation-protection services. And ultimately, Cox’s claims —the ones that hit court after she was forced to give up her source — didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact of the matter is, the shield law element of this shouldn’t have even come up in the case: Even without it the claims wouldn’t have held up, according to Kevin Padrick, who claims ruin at the hands of Cox’s many sites. source

• 1998Penenberg catches Stephen Glass, then a hotshot at The New Republic, fabricating a story. He legitimizes online journalism in the process.
• 2003Penenberg’s unprecedented catch gets new appreciation in the wake of the Jayson Blair saga. Steve Zahn plays him in the excellent movie about Glass.
• 2010 Frustrated that nobody is covering it, Penenberg takes to Twitter and tweets about a $131 million judgment against Ford. He’s hailed as an innovator again. source

• Carlos Slim is on top this year. But look deeper. Forbes’ billionaires list, a cultural touchstone, usually only focuses on the top of the list, mainly because it makes a good headline. But Forbes has a TON of information about the billionaires on their list. Here are some of our favorite details from doing a little research:

A good year for rebounds

• 1,011 billionaires are on this year’s list, which is way up from last year
• 164 billionaires returned to the list after losing much of their value in 2008
• 89 billionaires came from China, the largest non-U.S. total source

Extremes in rich bastards

• youngest Mark Zuckerberg, who, at 25, has more money than you’ll ever dream of, with assets worth $4 billion. Just think how much he’d be worth if Facebook took the IPO plunge. Or actually, just sulk. source
• oldest Fellow technology maven Walter Haefner is the real-life Mr. Burns at age 99. Except, instead of a nuclear plant, he owns 24 percent of information technology firm Computer Associates. source

• poorest Actually, trick question: There are 75 billionaires on the list with EXACTLY $1 billion in hand.
• leaper Brazilian oil baron Elke Batista wins, jumping $19.5 billion in a single year, to $27 billion.
• stars Oprah’s leaving her TV show soon, but she doesn’t need it; she’s worth $2.4 billion.

Schadenfreude-worthy subject

• Raj Rajaratnam is in big trouble. One of the guys who lost his billionaire club card, Rajaratnam’s hedge fund, Galleon Group, was caught in a major insider-trading scandal, which caused the fund to lose value quickly this past October, and as a result Rajaratnam is no longer a billionaire (and is probably going to prison!). source

• 49 Obama’s rank; he’s the first setting head of state on the chart source

• 701 Joaquin Guzman’s place on the Forbes billionaires list source