Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook Is Helping Us Disconnect From the World

Does Facebook want to enable personal interaction, or provide an escape from it? Judging by the TV spots for its poorly conceived Facebook Home product, it's the latter. But that doesn't make any sense, does it? Facebook is, after all, a social media service. One commercial, which Evan Selinger, wr ... More >>

Texas Governor Rick Perry to Land in S.F. Next Week

Earlier this week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry went on the airwaves, warning California that he was coming to poach our businesses. Now the governor/failed presidential candidate might not know a lot of things, like what the voting age is, but he sure as hell knows that it's going to take a lot more tha ... More >>

Facebook off the Hook for Intifada Pages That Promoted Killing Jews

Last year, Freedom Fighter Larry Klayman took Facebook to court, claiming Mark Zuckerberg was a self-hating Jew. Why? Because the 28-year-old bajillionaire refused to (promptly) take down the "Third Palestinian Intifada" Facebook page. Yes, it's exactly as it sounds. But Klayman officially lost hi ... More >>

Our Most Corrupt Tax Breaks: 10 Loopholes to Close Right Now

Yes, We Can Blame Facebook and its CFO for Stock Debacle

It's easy, and to a large degree proper, to blame the people who bought into Facebook's dog of an IPO for their own losses. It was no secret that the company's prospects were highly uncertain. But that doesn't mean that others can't be blamed as well, or that investors are the only ones hurt by the ... More >>

Facebook Wants Narcissists to Pay to Make Sure Everyone Sees Their Brilliant Status Updates

Imagine this scene:Half-filled Starbucks, around 2 p.m. Man in plaid button-down sits at table, reading nytimes.com story about Michele Bachmann denouncing her Swiss citizenship. Man chuckles, then pulls up Facebook window.Man in plaid button-down: Excuse me.Facebook: Yeah, waddya want?Man in plaid ... More >>

Google, Facebook, Inner Richmond: Israeli President Shimon Peres's Wild Bay Area Ride

​Things have slowed down considerably for Shimon Peres. The former Prime Minister of Israel used to occupy one of the most difficult political positions in the world; today, the 88-year old's duties as President (they're different, see) are mostly ceremonial, doling out political goodwill and barb ... More >>

Facebook Just Keeps Getting Worse

​Over the years, whenever Facebook has made changes, people have inevitably complained --  on Facebook -- about the changes Facebook made to Facebook. "I'm leaving Facebook," those people would declare, on Facebook. Of course, few of them ever actually left Facebook. Until recently, I have ... More >>

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo": Rooney Mara Takes Control

Facebook's Cheesy Ads: Do They Make it Worth $100 Billion?

​A couple of weeks ago, Business Insider, the puerile gossip 'n' lies site run by disgraced, bubble-era Internet-stock analyst Henry Blodget, informed us that a "source close to Facebook employees" said in an e-mail to the site that the company would go public within weeks. The article's author, N ... More >>

Facebook Fumbles Its Way Toward a Phone

​Facebook is building a phone, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital is reporting this week in a series of posts. Facebook basically has to do it if it wants to stay in competition with Apple and Google as the go-to online destination -- or platform, or "ecosystem." Lots of people make Fa ... More >>

The Perils of Policing Facebook Pages

​First it was the Islamic extremists. Now it's Mark Zuckerberg who is repressing Salman Rushdie. On Monday, Rushdie took to Twitter to complain that not only had Facebook shut down his page, apparently thinking it wasn't really his, but that the company then told him he couldn't use the name und ... More >>

What Exactly Is a Tech Company?

​Fast Company has published what might be the best, clearest look at the how the contours of the tech landscape are shaping themselves, and how that landscape has come to be dominated by four companies. I was alerted to the article via a tweet by Chronicle tech reporter Casey Newton who characte ... More >>

Snoop Dogg, The Killers, and Jane's Addiction Soundtrack the Opulence at a Facebook/Spotify Party (Photos)

Snoop Dogg. Photographs courtesy of Julie Schugard for Spotify​ Open bars of oysters, sushi, wine and cheese, and lots booze. Sound too good to be true? How about adding surprise musical entertainment by the Killers, Jane's Addiction, Snoop Dogg, and Kaskade? Yep, it happened. Last night's p ... More >>

Justin Timberlake: Top 5 Ways He Can Save MySpace

New media mogul?​Justin Timberlake's newly announced ownership stake in MySpace is without doubt the coolest thing to happen to the ailing social network in some time. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. just sold MySpace, which it acquired six years ago, at a $545 million loss. But new owner Specific Med ... More >>

Apple Employee Wants to Unionize

Taking a bite out of Apple​There's a great scene in The Social Network where Andrew Garfield's character, Eduardo Saverin, storms into the Facebook office, picks up Mark Zuckerberg's laptop, and sends him a strong message by shattering it.That's the sort of scene we imagined when word got out that ... More >>

Obama Asks San Francisco "Are You In" for 2012?

Are you FB friends with Obama?​After a short and public visit to Facebook in Silicon Valley, President Barack Obama headed up to San Francisco yesterday evening where he drove past the Golden Gate Bridge on his way to the Masonic Center in Nob Hill.  "One of the greatest views in the world," ... More >>

Photos of Steve Jobs Looking 'Gaunt'; Apple Stocks Drop

How sick is he?​Apple's Steve Jobs reportedly left the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto yesterday, which has reporters asking how sick is he?Photos that the National Enquirer published took of the frail and gaunt looking Jobs as he left the medical center are spreading across the web. All of th ... More >>

Obama to Meet Only Fat Cats in San Francisco

Thanks for stopping by, prez.​Why did President Barack Obama only schedule meetings this week with West Coast fat cats such as John Doerr and Steve Jobs, when he could be conversing with the people who need him the most: The poor and middle-class who helped vote him into office?"Obama's not going ... More >>

Arthouse movie listings for January 5-11, 2010

Arthouse movie listings for December 29, 2010-January 4, 2011

Arthouse movie listings for December 22-28, 2010

'Kings of Leon Tour Bus Catches Fire' And Other Headlines SF Artist Johnny Selman Should Interpret

​What's that you say? A San Francisco-based artist agitating for sociopolitical change? My stars, now we've seen everything! But seriously, folks. Transplanted Virginian and extremely assiduous master's candidate Johnny Selman has embarked on a pretty cool project for his Academy of Art thesis: fo ... More >>

Facebook Colonizes MySpace with 'Mashup'

Like MySpace, the rebellious Vercingetorix eventually surrendered to Caesar​In the latest piece of tech trivia to emerge in a technologically trivial week, MySpace CEO Mike Jones announced today that his ailing social network will now allow its users to import a wide range of information from thei ... More >>

Deflating the Social Media Hot Air Balloon

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Not a revolutionary​Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and their ilk -- standard bearers for the ill-defined phenomenon known as "social media" that is now supposed to be the future of the Web -- are having a tough time these days in the thinking person's press.Over the past f ... More >>

Get Off My Internets: Here's Something You Didn't Care About, and Shouldn't

My mentor, the journalist Paul Boutin, taught me plenty of rules about developing a story. My favorite is this: If the reader hasn't yet heard about your subject, you need a good reason to tell them about it. Never write a post that goes "here's something you didn't care about, and shouldn't." I dr ... More >>