• Over the past month, Mark Zuckerberg, the hottest new card player in town, has overplayed his hand. Facebook is officially ‘out,’ as in uncool, amongst partners, parents and pundits all coming to the realization that Zuckerberg and his company are–simply put–not trustworthy.
• Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jason Calacanis • Discussing the apparent Facebook backlash that already seems to be afoot amongst techies. Many are feeling that Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, has overplayed his hand with recent his recent moves, and companies once reliant on the social network’s ecosystem, namely “Farmville” creator Zynga, are trying to find alternatives. Calacanis goes further, and suggests that Facebook has stolen key features from other Silicon Valley companies, screwed their users over in terms of privacy, and built their company’s entire basis on lies and unethical behavior, and lost a lot of goodwill in the process. We should note, by the way, that Calacanis is a somewhat controversial figure because of the link-spammy nature of his Mahalo business, but he’s not alone in this feeling. source

• Off record chat w/ Facebook employee. Me: How does Zuck feel about privacy? Response: [laughter] He doesn’t believe in it.
• New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton • Tweeting something maybe he shouldn’t have. The tweet suggests that Mark Zuckerberg’s merely paying lip service to the idea of privacy, which is probably not something which helps his cause right now in the wake of the Open Graph push. Bilton, for his part, is facing a controversy of his own over his apparent misunderstanding of “off the record,” though in his defense, the source later said it was OK to leak the information without using their name. source

• Their vision of an open graph of people and things (with Facebook at the center) is becoming reality, and debates by technologists won’t change that. Facebook is taking over our identity and we are going along with that happily. It will take a new technology paradigm to disrupt what Facebook is doing.
• TechCrunch king Michael Arrington • Discussing why Facebook is in a dominant position in the industry, and why they’re in a position to convince everyone to use their Open Graph and like button mechanism. He compares what Facebook is doing to Microsoft Windows, and suggests that, despite complaints about various details of the concept, they’ve got the market lynchpinned. “Someday, maybe a decade from now,” he writes, “some new technology will rise and allow other companies to threaten Facebook. But until then there is little to stop them. Their march to dominance has just begun.” Do you guys think this is true? source

• Some seem to think it’s great. Others think Mark Zuckerberg overestimates his own service. Yesterday’s Facebook announcements were nothing short of epic, showing how Zuckerberg was able to turn his site into a link-servicing platform which allowed for a wider number of sharing opportunities. PC World’s Peter Smith makes a good point, however: Lots of people see Facebook as a time-waster, not a game-changing superplatform. Our opinion: If they can get us traffic, we don’t care what Mark Zuckerberg’s opinion of it is. 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

• Someone is already trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I’m like delaying it so it won’t be ready until after the facebook thing comes out.
• Mark Zuckerberg (as reported by The Business Insider) • Regarding an awkward situation he found himself in in late 2003 and early 2004, where he was asked to work on a site that competed with the basic idea of Facebook. Evidence obtained by The Business Insider suggests that Zuckerberg essentially stalled so that he would be able to launch Facebook first – which wasn’t so heavy on the dating element as HarvardConnection.com, the other site. Other fun allegations made by the site: Zuckerberg reportedly hacked into e-mail accounts of Harvard Crimson reporters and deactivated accounts on competing site ConnectU. source

• People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.
• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg • On why his site is slowly becoming less private and more open. As Twitter has created an environment best for open discussion, Facebook – a traditionally private, walled-garden site – has tried to react by stretching their privacy settings in a way that makes it easier to share information. We kinda disagree with Zuckerberg here – Facebook works best private, while Twitter works best public. They’re two different things. They work two different ways. source

• 200 million users are on Facebook; they’ll officially pass that mark today; celebrate by poking someone (us!) source

• Two hundred million in a world of six billion is tiny. It’s a cool milestone. It’s great that we reached that, especially in such a short amount of time. But there is so much more to do.
• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg • In an article about the company’s super-sized growth. Despite the growth, the article focuses on whether it’s growing too fast for its own good. Considering how many people get ticked off by a redesign, we argue yes. • source

• The past week reminded us that users feel a real sense of ownership over Facebook itself, not just the information they share.
• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg • On implementing a democratic process for people to discuss changes to the site’s policy. If enough response is created, the site will put changes up to a vote. Beats dramabombs. • source