Facebook’s top lawyer Ted Ullyot is leaving the social networking giant, apparently to take some time off.

Facebook disclosed the departure today. Ullyot, 45, will be officially gone in July; the search for his replacement will include internal and external candidates.

As general counsel, Ullyot has presided over a myriad of new, unusual and sometimes controversial legal issues, including managing high-stakes and complex litigation that ranged from Facebook’s battle with the Winklevoss twins, to a patent fight with Yahoo to investor disgruntlement around its initial public offering.

And, of course, over privacy issues. In many ways, given the Silicon Valley company’s pioneering role in social networking, Ullyot has had to work in a relatively undiscovered landscape, which has also attracted a great deal of scrutiny from consumers, regulators and investors.

He started in the fall of 2008, and has managed all the legal aspects of the company and built up the team from 10 when Facebook was a startup to more than 70 as a public company. In that time, Facebook has grown from 500 people to 5,000 and from 100 million to over one billion active users.

It has certainly been a ride for him, from beating back the Winklevii over their allegations related to the founding of Facebook to settling the patent dispute with Yahoo to handling the Federal Trade Commission investigation and more.

It is not clear what he will do next, but sources said he does not have another job lined up as of yet.

Persistence — even if it is the whiny, likely undeserved, lunkheaded legal version of it — certainly pays off.

But you have to marvel at the bizarre karma going on, given that my favorite matching pair of digital ottomans, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are poised to collect up to $300 million from the shares they got in a settlement with Facebook and its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of the social networking giant.

That’s right, folks, the rich do get richer, especially if they pursue their case well past the point of shame.

It’s not clear how many of the 1.2 million shares the Winklevii still have from the settlement they got in 2008, since they wrangled with their own lawyers over it, and the stock has also split.

But let’s assume the Olympic rowers kept a chunk, which will be worth a lot of gold-plated oars if Facebook reaches the upward of $80 billion valuation it is expected to in its upcoming initial public offering.

Facebook filed its long-expected IPO earlier this week.

And here’s a lovely tweet about the IPO from Cameron Winklevoss, who is looking very fetching on his Twitter page, even if it is perhaps about time to lose the rower meme image thing, given he’s on the closer side of 30 years old.

We r excited 4the #FacebookIPO + wish the company + all involved the very best,an amazing accomplishment! cc @tylerwinklevoss @DivyaNarendra

— Cameron Winklevoss (@winklevoss) February 2, 2012

He sent it to his twin brother, Tyler, and also to Divya Narendra, their other partner in the ill-fated ConnectU service.

Without going into all the well-gone-over deets (go see the Aaron Sorkin-penned movie and believe about 26 percent of it), ConnectU was the Harvard University dating site that Zuckerberg allegedly submarined in order to start Facebook.

Well, presumably water under bridge — unless you are talking about the perpetually disgruntled Winklevii.

At the time they finally dropped their seven-year fraud lawsuit this past summer, they then reopened to a different one then pending.

“The Social Network 2: The Overly Compensated Vii Strike Back,” anyone?

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Remember when Fortune magazine wrote in September that Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had reportedly bagged a bison as part of a “personal challenge” to eat only what he had killed?

Well, proof of that is hard to miss, now that the ginormous mounted head of said dead bison has been hung on the wall of a Facebook conference room used by the social networking site’s COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Zuckerberg placed it there recently as a prank, to surprise his top exec with the installation of the very hairy bison when she was away from Facebook’s Silicon Valley HQ.

And surprised she was when she got back and was faced with the creature, which pretty much takes up the whole room, as you can see above and below.

(And, let me just say on a personal level, like a digital version of the “Murder She Wrote” lady, solving the mystery of this geek-on-bison killing is a whole lot more satisfying than getting a pile of internal Yahoo memos.)

The bison has now been nicknamed Billy and also sports a Facebook-branded baseball cap and occasional hoodie — natch! (My suggestion if you want to use a dead beast metaphor most effectively here would be to clad it all in Google swag.)

While he never confirmed it, Zuckerberg had teased the crowd about the possibility of his hunting prowess at the f8 developers conference this fall in his keynote speech, displaying his Facebook page that had a picture of what he had tagged “Bison Burgers.”

In fact, it’s been quite a lot of bison for the famous entrepreneur since he felled the majestic beast. According to Wikipedia, bison usually weigh 700 to 2,200 pounds, but can be as much as 3,800 pounds. That’s a lot of burgers!

To get them, Zuckerberg learned the most humane approach and then shot the beast in California, after obtaining a hunting license and, presumably, a very big gun.

Clearly, he was serious when he told Fortune in May that “the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself.” Among the early victims, which grew in size, were a lobster, a chicken, a pig and a goat.

At this time, the Winklevii are still roaming the plains — and it would be illegal and just plain mean on Zuckerberg’s part to frag them any more than he already has.

So, he went for the bison, the next biggest beast in his cross-hairs.

Its head will be moved to Facebook’s new headquarters today along with the rest of the company, who will now work in spacious new digs.

Which, I am told, could easily fit a herd of elephants — but let’s not go there.

Former Harvard president and White House economic adviser Larry Summers had the line that echoed furthest from Aspen into the outside world: Calling the Facebook-suing Winklevoss twins “assholes” and affirming that the “Social Network” portrayal of him arrogantly dismissing their concerns as Harvard undergrads was accurate. Summers said:

One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o’clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they’re looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was the latter case.

The Winklevii, for their part, publicly protested that the president of a college probably shouldn’t be writing off students for what they wear.

Below is a video of just the Winklevii quote, but if you’re interested in more topical U.S. economy stuff you may want to watch the full thing, which was quite good.

A more unexpected breakout hit was a panel session on mobile payments that had Square’s Keith Rabois with his claws out toward Google’s Stephanie Tilenius and the general premise of near field communications money transfers. Then Verifone’s Doug Bergeron compared Square to a subprime mortgage lender.

Here’s the video:

(Google CFO Patrick Pichette got in another mobile payment quotable during a separate session, saying, “A wallet is a medieval item, right? It’s made of hide.”)

And then lastly, and more broadly, investment banker Frank Quattrone brought today’s technology “bubble” into context with a mix of zingers and stats. He said LinkedIn is the Netscape of this era (beginning of a boom, not end of a bubble), and traced a shift in market caps from older tech giants to emerging ones.

Here’s that session, with video and a full transcript:

Specifically, the Winklevii wish they’d known about some instant messenger transcripts reportedly written by a young Mark Zuckerberg that specifically acknowledge the transgression at the center of their moral crusade. According to the transcripts, Zuckerberg said of the Winklevoss twins and their business partner, ”I’m going to [expletive] them” and “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.”

You can’t sue someone for bad judgment, though.

Which is what Facebook has probably wanted to do for a while now, too.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

You can chillax, Mark Zuckerberg–it’s not “The Social Network 2: The Winklevii Stroke, Stroke, Strooooke Back.”

In fact, it’s more like: “You’ve Got Social Network Mail.”

That’s because Facebook and AOL will star together in a just signed movie, which will be made from a young adult novel that will not hit the shelves until November.

Titled “The Future of Us,” the book is set in 1996 and concerns two friends who sign onto AOL–the Facebook of its day–only to find their pages on the social networking giant from 15 years hence (as in now!).

Agonized agonizing presumably ensues, probably around how to erase all those drunken college photos.

“The Future of Us” has a Facebook page, of course, which noted its screen-rights sale to Warner Bros. The book itself will be published in November in a big printing by Penguin’s young adult imprint, Razorbill.

The Winklevii want the high court to invalidate their previous multi-million dollar settlement over the founding of Facebook because Facebook didn’t tell them its true valuation at the time. They have tried and failed to get the settlement appealed three times.

Here’s the press release:

Howard Rice Clients Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra To Seek U.S. Supreme Court Review

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – May 16, 2011 – After the Ninth Circuit today denied rehearing en banc in the ongoing dispute, the law firm of Howard Rice announced that its clients, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, intend to file a Petition for Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court in the ongoing dispute with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

Lead appellate attorney Jerome B. Falk, Jr., said, “The Ninth Circuit’s opinion creates a conflict between Ninth Circuit precedent and the decisions of other federal courts on two issues.

The first is the Court’s holding that a party who is defrauded into entering into a settlement agreement cannot challenge the contract on the ground of fraud. Federal and state courts have long held that a settlement founded on fraud must be set aside. The Court’s decision conflicts with that body of precedent.

The second issue is the Court’s holding that a routine agreement to hold statements made in a mediation confidential bars proof that Facebook committed securities fraud in the mediation. Numerous federal precedents, and the text of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act, hold that an agreement to directly or indirectly waive rights under federal antifraud provisions of the securities laws is void. The Panel’s decision conflicts with that body of precedent.”

Settlements should be based on honest dealing, and courts have wisely refused to enforce a settlement obtained by fraudulent means. The Court’s decision shut the courthouse door to a solid claim that Facebook obtained this settlement by committing securities fraud. Our Petition to the Supreme Court will ask the high court to decide whether that door should be reopened.”

The Howard Rice team includes Jerome B. Falk, Jr., Sean M. SeLegue, Shaudy Danaye-Elmi and Noah S. Rosenthal.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

It seems Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the Don Quixote twins of the digital age, have tilted at yet another legal windmill unsuccessfully.

So now, after losing another court challenge to overturn a previous court challenge, they’ll have to settle for $65 million.

Actually, $100 million, which is how much shares in Facebook have appreciated since the pair and also Divya Narendra settled with the social networking giant.

Said the ruling from the U.S. Circuit of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in part:

The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace. And the courts might have obliged, had the Winklevosses not settled their dispute and signed a release of all claims against Facebook. With the help of a team of lawyers and a financial advisor, they made a deal that appears quite favorable in light of recent market activity. For whatever reason, they now want to back out. Like the district court, we see no basis for allowing them to do so. At some point, litigation must come to an end. That point has now been reached.

The end? Say it ain’t so! BoomTown, for one, will miss those big lugs.

Not so much Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, especially since the pair allege the tech wunderkind stole the idea for the start-up while a student at Harvard University.

After much legal mishegas, they got $20 million and 1.25 million shares at a price of $8.88 each.

And that’s more than enough, said court to the the Winklevii–it’s their eternal nickname in Silicon Valley now–and they can’t back out of a settlement they made in 2004.

As for the specifics, the three-judge panel struck down every Winklevoss argument:

- They said the terms of the Facebook deal introduced after mediation were typical.

- They said Winklevii should have been sophisticated enough to understand valuation.

- They said Winklevii couldn’t use the sealed mediation settlement documents to argue their case.

It’s true, but it’s also sad to see it all over, since all the litigiousness between Zuckerberg and the Olympic rowing brothers has been so dramatic that it was the subject of the almost Oscar-winning movie, “The Social Network.”

But maybe they can go to the Supreme Court! One can dream!

And with their latest loss and all the Google machinating against Facebook, who’s up for a sequel: “Geek Wars: The Empire and the Vii Strike Back.”

In a statement, Colin Stretch, deputy general counsel of Facebook said: “We appreciate the Ninth Circuit’s careful consideration of this case and are pleased the court has ruled in Facebook’s favor.”

Here’s the full ruling:

08-16745

Here’s one from CNN. The Winklevii tell Piers Morgan that it’s not ironic that they are now active Facebook users, despite their ongoing legal and moral crusades against the company. “Technically we’re using our idea….It’s really our product and we’re the originators.” (The two grown men, somewhat oddly, make little effort to differentiate from each other, so I’ll just attribute those comments to both of them.)

And here’s one from the Daily, which shot crazy amounts of creative B-roll of the Winklevosses’ rippling muscles and chiseled jaws (they are Olympic rowers, after all). This is part one of a three-part series by the Daily’s Erin Ade, who discloses she’s a childhood friend of the Winklevii. Cameron and Tyler say they want to tell Zuckerberg to “grow up and admit to the world and yourself what you already know is true…because the moment you do that the chapter will be closed and you can move on as an individual.”

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Perusing AOL’s leaked damn-the-journalism-full-speed-ahead business plan, BoomTown was a little late to the Microsoft Bing event this morning called “Farsight: Beyond the Search Box.”

But things had certainly been cooking with gas when I walked into the meeting room at the University of San Francisco, which the organizers had decked out in white nubby rugs, white pleather couches and those white egg-shaped chairs found only in 1970s decor.

Schweeet!

First up was well-known investor and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, poo-poohing Microsoft’s prospects of ever making money in search.

“It’s difficult to produce a new search company,” said Thiel, noting that even with a growing market share it’s curtains for Bing, given the huge fixed costs. “As far as I can tell, it’s still not breaking even.”

Ouch!

By the way, Thiel sold semantic search engine Powerset to Microsoft for upward of $100 million in 2008 to help it, you know, get ahead in search.

Way to insult your money-bearing hosts!

Then, moderator Vivek Wadhwa harangued the panelists from Google, Microsoft and Blekko in the session “Who Will Win the Spam Wars?”

And they say I’m a snarky moderator! Wadhwa is snarktastic!

Wadhwa did not like any of it–not crappy content sites that sully Web search, not the efforts the companies were making to fix things, not the vision the trio had of the future.

And, by the way, Microsoft was not ever going to make money off all the company’s efforts.

Way to insult your hosts! I like this event!

Of course, what everyone was interested in was a smackdown between Google and Microsoft, given that the search giant accused the software giant of stealing its results today.

In an excellent, if exhaustive, post by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, Google said Bing was cheating by lifting its search results, which Google said it had proved via a “honeypot” sting operation.

“I’ve spent my career in pursuit of a good search engine,” Google’s Amit Singhal told Search Engine Land. “I’ve got no problem with a competitor developing an innovative algorithm. But copying is not innovation, in my book.”

The very presence of the word “honeypot” in any story about search algorithms is superb, in my book, even though this “controversy” is pretty much a he-said-he-said geek-off.

Google’s Matt Cutts kept up the cheater pressure at the Bing event, in a short debate with Microsoft’s Harry Shum, who was not having any of it.

“It’s not like we actually copy anything,” he said.

Translation: Actually, we do borrow, just like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg did to the Winklevii, resulting in a social networking behemoth that will soon take over all search and make this whole debate moot.

Microsoft is rubber, Google is glue. And Facebook, which was not present at the search event, is the real sticky honeypot.

But the Olympic rowers and one-time social networking entrepreneurs–one twin’s suit was more pin-striped than the next–were back at it this morning in San Francisco for their biggest hearing yet, in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Unfortunately for them, Facebook’s more polished presentation seemed to go over better with the judges than the Winklevoss’ claim they had been unprepared and uninformed when they finalized a previous settlement.

While I sought network connectivity in the back of the extra-large ornate courtroom, wishing for a Verizon iPhone hotspot, the twins sat stoically and silently in the front as Facebook’s attorney, Orrick partner Joshua Rosenkranz, urged them to let it go, saying they are “big boys,” and “big boys can make deals that bind them.”

The Winklevii, as Silicon Valley folks like to call them, are rehashing a settlement with Facebook from three years ago over the events of seven years ago.

They have now hired new lawyers and appealed a previous judgment, having accused their previous lawyers of malpractice and withheld their attorney fees (a case they also lost).

The twins want that 2008 settlement–which had Facebook buy their ConnectU social network for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares, at that time considered .3 percent of the company–revoked, so they can resume their original lawsuit over Mark Zuckerberg flaking on their project while he started Facebook.

In December, they reportedly considered dropping the matter entirely and keeping what they have already pocketed, but decided they must keep fighting.

The settlement of 2008 was invalid, argued Winklevoss lawyer Jerome Falk of Howard Rice in court today, because terms were not finalized before it was signed, and in particular the portion of the settlement awarded in stock was at a valuation about four times higher than Facebook’s internal valuation at the time.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard from both Falk and Rosenkranz at length, allowing them to exceed their expected time to thoroughly discuss the case. A ruling should be forthcoming about three months from now.

The discussion focused on precise details of California and federal securities law and case law about, for example, whether a mediation session that was confidential could be opened to evaluate whether fraud occurred.

Others involved in the case, such as Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss’ ConnectU o-founder Divya Narendra, were not in attendance.

From the cheap seats, it seemed that the judges were more critical of the Winklevoss argument. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (pictured here) was quite skeptical of the ideas that Facebook needed to disclose its internal valuation and that the settlement agreement signed after mediation was somehow informal.

Judge J. Clifford Wallace commented that the Winklevosses are clearly quite capable and were well-represented during the mediation by their team of lawyers and their father, a former business school professor at Wharton.

“I agree my clients were not behind the barn door when the brains were passed out,” replied Falk.

Judge Barry Silverman harped on why the Winklevosses hadn’t directly asked Facebook what its current valuation was. “This question could have been asked, should have been asked and wasn’t asked,” he said.

In the hallway and outside the courthouse, the Winklevii themselves would only politely say that they look forward to the court’s ruling. Chased by reporters and photographers, they made a quick exit.

Meanwhile Facebook Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy VP Elliot Schrage, who had brought his two young sons to see the hearing in person, commented that the issues at stake are much more exacting details than the personal story of Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses that’s now widely known (in large part due to its Hollywood portrayal in “The Social Network”).

Falk said he thought the court was “thorough and well-prepared,” and he was grateful the court allowed the full arguments to be made.

Besides not willing to compromise their honor, the Winklevii can trace much of their dispute to problems reaching formal agreements, especially with Zuckerberg and his cronies.

They never got Zuckerberg to sign a contract to work for them back at Harvard, and then years later when they got him to settle, they allowed Facebook to set terms that weren’t fully scoped out.

Obviously, they later came to regret it.

Falk said on the courthouse steps that his clients don’t actually want their settlement retroactively valued (combining the Winklevoss’ chosen price and Facebook’s current valuation, their shares would be worth something like $608 million today), but rather to “get their lawsuit back,” so they can keep pursuing it.

Which would mean: More Winklevii!

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

In hopes of seeing some tall curly haired Olympic rowers and their legal posse in the flesh, I’ll be there bright and early, though the action may not commence until later in the day. The crew from Facebook will also be making an appearance, though we don’t know exactly who will show up.

The twin Winklevoss brothers–who have said their portrayal in the Hollywood blockbuster based on the founding of Facebook, “The Social Network,” was accurate–had settled two years ago with Facebook for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares (worth approximately $150 million now). But they think Facebook purposely withheld the real value of the shares at the time. A reassessment would make their stake worth much more: $608 million at the latest valuation.

For an explainer on the latest ConnectU appeal, see this recent NetworkEffect parsing of a filing from Facebook that effectively poked fun of the Winklevii:

The settlement came after closed-door professional mediation in February 2008. Facebook says it’s outraged that the Winklevii and their lawyers are bringing conversations from mediation back into the appeal, because all involved were sworn to confidentiality…

But after the settlement, ConnectU came back to the table asking for its share to be revalued. It had originally negotiated using a publicly reported valuation from when Microsoft invested in Facebook, rather than an internal valuation from around the same time that would have priced the shares much lower ($8.88 versus $35.90). A revaluation of the shares to a smaller amount would give the twins a larger stake in the company.

If anything interesting happens in court, I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Update: Here’s my report on the Winklevoss hearing.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is certainly in the midst of a media bonanza.

Aside from all the heat over its recent investment whatever with Goldman Sachs, the young entrepreneur has been touted on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and been selected Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Oh, yes, and that movie–”The Social Network”–which you just know is going to win some Oscars on February 27.

Now CNBC has just aired a documentary on the huge social networking site, titled–appropriately–“The Facebook Obsession.”

There is no new interview with Zuckerberg, and it’s essentially the same story about the Silicon Valley wunderkind, told yet again. But all the old video clips and photos collected all together on another television show are nice.

Also, I always enjoy the Winklevii spouting off hambone arguments about why they are owed more than $65 million for Zuckerberg’s kneecapping of them back at Harvard University.

And, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-me appearance, I also make a showing, apparently as the grumpy one.

But I did not see it, as CNBC did not deign to post the entire report online, as “60 Minutes” so kindly did.

CNBC did do a preview and provide some clips, which are embedded below, as well the the much funnier Jon Stewart take on it all on “The Daily Show,” titled “The Anti-Social Network”:

Many years ago, before Google went public, I had an unusual late-night conversation in the lobby of the TED conference with its co-founder Larry Page about the prospect, about which–despite its inevitability–he had more than a little nervousness.

That would be: Taking the search company public.

After much ruminating, Page concluded that one of the more important reasons he felt compelled to have an IPO was to finally reward Google’s employees for all the work they had done to build the company.

While I have never had a similar chat with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the powerful social networking company and an initial public offering, I suspect that he would not express any such sentiment.

And it’s not because Zuckerberg does not value his staffers any less than Page did–instead, it’s because he seems to value his privacy most of all.

I know–ironic!–given how many perceive the company to be cavalier about important issues related to disclosures of personal information uploaded to Facebook by the mountain-load daily by its hundreds of millions of users.

That aside, Zuckerberg’s clear intent to keep the lid on Facebook tight–with no information about the details of financial performance and other pertinent information a public offering would require be disclosed–is clearly about to become a nettlesome issue for the company.

While that effort at preserving secrecy by staying private has resulted in little more than cute Silicon Valley media guessing games about a possible IPO, its most recent machinations are too clever by a half.

That would be the new and giant investment from Goldman Sachs, as well as a deal to get $1.5 billion of pre-IPO shares in the hands of the investment bank’s rich customers.

Aside from the appalling image that only the very wealthy can get an early shot at Facebook shares, which instantly became a press meme yesterday after the Goldman deal was announced, pretending this single investment entity–called a “special purpose vehicle”–simply feels like a Wall Street trick.

Plus, a special purpose vehicle sounds like a car that bankers use to take people for a ride.

Thus, a gaggle of rich doctors in New Jersey are treated like one blob, instead of what is plainly true to all. As the old Latin legal phrase goes: Res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

Of course, this strategic move is designed to keep the number of primary stockholders under 500, which is the IPO tipping point for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Therefore, by all means, let’s do it!

Or not, because I had an intense déjà vu about all this, and an unease that it felt vaguely familiar as a negative characteristic of Zuckerberg’s leadership that seems to cling to him.

That would be the dicey origins of Facebook, which remain a controversy to this day, including garnering an entire Hollywood movie on the subject.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Facebook’s history knows the basic question: Did Mark Zuckerberg “steal” the idea for Facebook from the Winklevoss twins, as well as sandbag their efforts, while they were all students at Harvard University?

And, more to the point, was it illegal?

The Winklevii certainly think so, continuing in their Don Quixote quest to take Zuckerberg down in a series of ever-more-comical lawsuits.

For me, the answer is a lot more complex–I think Zuckerberg most definitely screwed with the Olympic rowing twins and it was very creepy that he did.

But, in terms of breaking the law, not so much.

Of course, if you are endeavoring to always act with ethics in your career, this should not be the bar set. But in practical terms, it was most definitely an aggressive knee-capping that is not uncommon in business.

Zuckerberg has shown similar tendencies many times since then, especially around the thorny issues of privacy, where fast-and-loose behaviors are quickly followed by the I’m-sorry-I-didn’t-mean-it excuses.

Okay, fine, I get it. Business is war.

But, as it moves into a more mature place, the question now is whether Facebook should keep stressing this kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge propensity, because it feels–how can I say this in the nicest way–icky.

Plus it will surely attract unneeded attention from the SEC, which is already looking into the opaque market for trading shares of closely held companies and where Facebook is the star attraction.

And this is to say nothing of other issues–for example, could there be insider trading problems around the buying and selling of these private shares, as one person close to the situation has noted to me?

Facebook, of course, will defend what it is doing as above board, say it’s not unfair to give special access to its bounty to the very rich in what is essentially a private IPO and wag a finger at critics like me and tell us we don’t understand sophisticated financial issues.

But here’s what I grok without a Harvard Business School degree: It feels sneaky, it feels elite, it feels opaque, and this kind of fancy financing footwork could end in tears.

Because these legitimate questions on how Facebook handles its stock will continue to dog the company until–when he is good and ready (and finances at Facebook look prettier)–Zuckerberg eventually pulls the trigger on an IPO.

It would be nice, even if Wall Street applauds his cleverness, if he didn’t keep shooting himself in the foot along the way.

The brief was actually filed back in June, and I found a better, watermark-free copy of it here on the Web site of the Winklevoss lawyers. Last night I took the time to read it in full, and it was surprisingly not boring.

Perhaps the most revelatory thing in the Facebook filing is that Facebook’s lawyers seem to be having fun with the case. Their writing is laden with imagery and over-the-top exasperation with the Winklevii’s allegedly poorly formed legal arguments. Here’s the dramatic intro to the brief:

This appeal arises from the settlement of rancorous litigation on two coasts. On one side were Appellees Facebook, Inc. and its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. On the other side were the Appellants, who founded a failing competitor of Facebook’s called ConnectU. The CU Founders claimed that they had the idea for Facebook first, and Facebook stole their idea. Facebook denied those claims and, for its part, accused ConnectU and its Founders of unlawfully infiltrating its systems, stealing millions of email addresses, and then spamming them. During a global mediation, the parties signed a “Term Sheet and Settlement Agreement.” In the interest of achieving litigation peace, Facebook agreed to purchase ConnectU for [redacted] dollars and [redacted] shares of Facebook stock, one of the hottest startups in the world. Surrounded by a bevy of lawyers, the CU Founders signed the deal. Then they suffered a bout of settlers’ remorse. They ask this Court to relieve them of the deal they struck to plunge back into scorched-earth litigation.

Besides the writing, the other thing that’s interesting is the information about the terms of the relationship between Facebook and ConnectU. While the story has been simplified into a Hollywood-style betrayal as portrayed in “The Social Network,” the outcome of Zuckerberg and the Winklevii’s legal mediation is much less widely reported.

As part of its settlement with the Winklevoss twins, Facebook agreed to acquire their social network ConnectU (which they eventually did find someone to build), and has been “operating” it since Dec. 2008, the filing says (the site itself is offline).

Facebook contends that this earlier agreement to buy ConnectU was final, while the Winklevii are calling it a draft (their co-founder Divya Narendra has publicly said he’s moved past the Zuckerberg vendetta, though he’s mentioned in the filings as well).

The settlement came after closed-door professional mediation in February 2008. Facebook says it’s outraged that the Winklevii and their lawyers are bringing conversations from mediation back into the appeal, because all involved were sworn to confidentiality.

(You can also read the ConnectU appeal brief for the case to which Facebook was responding. However the bits from the mediation that were supposed to be confidential have been blacked out.)

But after the settlement, ConnectU came back to the table asking for its share to be revalued. It had originally negotiated using a publicly reported valuation from when Microsoft invested in Facebook, rather than an internal valuation from around the same time that would have priced the shares much lower ($8.88 versus $35.90). A revaluation of the shares to a smaller amount would give the twins a larger stake in the company.

And also, the Winklevii wanted the transaction to be labeled a merger instead of an acquisition so they could avoid paying some taxes on it.

Facebook replied in the June brief, again in remarkably florid fashion:

“First, the CU Founders try to leave this Court with the impression that the only valuation figure they knew was the $15 billion figure from the Microsoft press release, and that they, therefore, had reason to enshrine it as gospel. They also portray the one 409A valuation on which they rely here as some seismic event in the life of the company, as if an unexpected bolt of lightning from on high emblazoned $8.88 onto a couple of tablets. Both the impressions are false.”

Facebook, by the way, to add insult to injury, says the internal valuation of its shares at the time of the Microsoft investment was actually even lower than the Winklevoss lawyers are arguing: Six days before the Microsoft transaction, Facebook had filed a document valuing employee stock options at just $6.61.

The attorney who signed the Facebook brief is Monte Cooper of Orrick, an intellectual property specialist. I hope he also writes novels in his spare time.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Here is the whole CBS interview on “60 Minutes” of Mark Zuckerberg, which aired last night.

The quick poll of the piece on Twitter and in the blogosphere: The Facebook co-founder and CEO did great and his Harvard University nemisii, the Winklevoss twins, looked goony and graspy (even though Zuck did sandbag them).

And, yes, BoomTown said the Winklevii got enough dough for their role in social networking history and the “toddler CEO” turned out to be a prodigy. Also, that veteran television correspondent Lesley Stahl is a “fuddy-duddy” (she asked and I keed!).

But see for yourself, in two parts:

This Sunday, the CBS television news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy.

Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. His “was-that-a-question?” response to an obvious question by Stahl was a near classic in geek communications.

Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules an incredibly powerful tech company worth gazillions more (good), has developed into a very polished leader (good) and even had a big Hollywood movie called “The Social Network” made about him (not so good).

Presumably, Stahl will cover all that in her new chat with him, which includes a visit to Facebook’s new Palo Alto, Calif. HQ.

Stahl also interviewed me again and pistol-whipped me–okay, she just asked–until I took back my snarkiest remark from the first one, in which I called Zuckerberg a “toddler CEO.”

My new take, now sporting smart-lady glasses and much grayer hair: The toddler has turned out to be a prodigy!

In other words, the worm has officially turned.

Stahl also wanted to know about the rivalry with Google, the fallout of the movie, my epic de-hoodie-ing of Zuckerberg at D8 conference and what-up with the Winklevii (whom, I believe, I called “hambones.”)

Here is a small taste of the new piece, which airs at 7 pm this Sunday, followed by the entire one from 2008 and the blog post I did about it:

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks-tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

BoomTown usually does not get all weepy over the departure of public relations folks at Internet companies, in that cynical I’ve-seen-’em-come-and-I’ve-seen-’em-go kind of way.

But the leaving of Brandee Barker (pictured here) from Facebook most certainly elicited a small single tear of sadness this morning, when she called into All Things Digital Global HQ to say she would no longer be tossing me her patented–and very endearing–hand-in-the-face “no comment” for the powerful social networking site.

After four long and tumultuous years, she leaves the company on Dec. 10.

(In a changing-of-the-guard theme, Barker follows longtime advertising sales exec Mike Murphy, who also recently resigned, out the door.)

In a statement, Facebook said:

“We can confirm Brandee is leaving Facebook to start a communications consulting business focused on early stage tech companies. We are grateful for her dedication and the company has benefited greatly from her contributions. We suspect Brandee’s future clients will also value her talents and experience and we wish her much success with her new venture.”

Indeed, although the geeks always get the credit, Facebook owes an awful lot to Barker, for helping its products and services stand out in a sea of competitors.

For certain, it was not as influential as it is today when Barker got there as its head of PR, just as the start-up was beginning to make itself known.

There were only seven million Facebook members when Barker joined, compared to 500 million today.

Still, the veteran communications exec was quickly aware of its power when 750,000 of those members protested against Facebook’s introduction of the initially controversial news feed.

“I had no idea when I took the job that it would be like that,” said Barker, who was employee No. 120 at Facebook, in an Interview with me this morning.

In fact, it has been like that ever since then, as she has navigated a series of triumphs and just as many mishaps for the company as it grew and grew.

One of her favorite moments, she told me, was the introduction of the Facebook platform at its inaugural F8 developers event several years ago.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] had a real vision and the craziness that followed it was an incredible experience,” said Barker, who was the one largely responsible for introducing the decidedly quirky co-founder and CEO of Facebook to the world.

For the most part, Barker shepherded him well, even as the fire hose of attention increased in media, consumer and regulatory pressure over issues ranging from the controversial founding of Facebook–Barker has a masters from Harvard University in Winklevii crisis management–to privacy snafus and more.

A lot of her ministrations were funny, though, as she remembered: “Another great moment was when I insisted Mark take a suitcase instead of a backpack to his first Davos in 2007, so I went out and bought him one.”

And let us not even get into the flip-flop controversies or when I snarkily called Zuckerberg “toddler CEO” to Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.”

Barker handled it all with grace and humor.

But as Facebook has grown to more than 1,500 employees and its business has boomed, Barker–who recently returned to the company after having a baby–decided that bigger was not better, at least for her.

“I had a pretty deep evaluation when I was away from the company that what I am good at and what I like is working with early-stage companies and their teams,” said Barker, who will start a communications consultancy. “At this point in my career, that’s what I want to do.”

Barker noted, in fact, that there were a lot of companies started by former early Facebook employees like her that might become clients, although she declined to be more specific.

In the end, another “no comment” for me from Barker!

I don’t mind, because here is my comment, on the record and for attribution: It’s a sad day for Facebook, and I’ll miss Brandee Barker very much.

Speaking of no comment, here is Barker in one of my favorite no comments, from behind a plant at a 2008 Silicon Valley luncheon for the German DLD conference:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101108/brandee-no-comment-barker-finally-comments-pr-honcho-leaving-facebook/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/ http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:44:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35998

BoomTown had to park a badillion miles away from Facebook’s suburban HQ in Palo Alto, Calif. and hoofed it there for a press event that unveiled the sFund.

What’s that? A $250 million fund for social start-ups.

10:40 am PT: The excitement was building–well, not really…well, not at all, in fact–at the Facebook cafeteria, as the Silicon Valley press got to see the name of the sFund on screens throughout the room.

Kleiner Perkins power VC John Doerr started off the proceedings with some microphone snafus, when he tried to get out from behind the podium.

“John, sometimes you have to stay in the box,” joked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who was sitting onstage in what appears to be an Internet Hall of Fame group.

The others would be Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Zynga CEO and Founder Mark Pincus, and giant-man-about-Web Bing Gordon.

Doerr talked on about the importance of social, related to the Internet.

Then, he introed Zuckerberg, hoodie-less, who agreed with him, talking about photos and how social made them hot on Facebook.

Apparently, everything is going social. Personally, I am now contemplating becoming a hermit.

Doerr went full Oprah on him, asking what would inspire him to innovate, if he were starting out today (and presumably there were no Winklevii around to “borrow” an idea from).

“If you take any passion and map it to an industry,” said Zuckerberg, it will result in disruption.

Then Doerr channeled Barbara Walters at Pincus, tossing him a softball query about the fabulousness of it all.

For example: “What’s inspired you to be a CEO at this amazing company?” (Note to Walt Mossberg: Let’s file that tough one away for D9!)

11:01 am:Thank goodness then for Bezos, who simply said he hoped these new companies will take some of that $250 million and use Amazon Web Services.

He talked about how these trends grow virally and “sometimes violently.”

Ouch!

Speaking of pinchy, Bezos moved on to some chemical explosion metaphor, and I am now certain I want to be a hermit crab.

Then, after a question about what he would do now, he veered to bioengineering! Doerr wanted a social answer, but Bezos was talking test tubes and “engineered and synthetic life.”

But Gordon behaved for John “Diane Sawyer” Doerr and talked about how social is the only place to be for the cool kids.

He reeled off the other partners, including Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Co.

One more question from Doerr: Five years from now, what is going to make you “delighted” about and for the customers you service.

Gordon: He could see the family.

Pincus: He has 12-week twins, not the Winklevii, who are still too young to use Facebook. He was excited it is all getting wired.

“When everyone is always connected to one another, rather than connected to the Web,” he said, that’s the bomb.

He called the big social companies “dial tones,” as in Zynga was the gaming dial tone, Amazon was the shopping dial tone and Facebook was the dial tone.

Zuckerberg: I was not sure he was actually answering the question. But I believed his wish was about these social networks getting to scale.

He went on though, talking about how some companies were building a “light” social layer versus companies where social was “built fundamentally into the product.”

These, of course, have an advantage, according to the gospel of Zuckerberg.

Bezos: He talked about Amazon’s Web services some more–this dude is a retailer, so he was sure good at selling.

Gordon, who is apparently like Ed McMahon to Doerr’s Johnny Carson, rounded up the feel-good session.

11:17 am: Q&A.

Go Miguel Helft, from the New York Times, who asked a good question, about what took so long for Doerr to do this fund, since social–i.e., Facebook–has been around for seven years or more.

Doerr joked, “Next question.” Ha.

But really. Doerr did not answer except to say that Zynga only exploded a year ago, so back off, Miguel.

There were two other dullish questions, about new partners.

“It’s a quarter-billion-dollar party,” said Gordon, which I was not quite wanting to attend. Which made me a social party pooper.

Larry Magid from CBS asked about social responsibility around privacy, especially after the recent controversy around the leaking of Facebook user info to advertisers, via third-party apps companies such as Zynga.

Then, there ws a question about whether this is not simply the “fbFund,” as in Facebook, since the social networking site was going to benefit the most from all this.

No, it was not, declares Doerr.

More questions–about monetization, advertising, free versus paid and an off-topic one about rumors of Amazon launching an app store (of course it is!).

Zuckerberg took the monetization one. All of the above, it’s great, money for all.

The event finished with a very odd poem by Gordon, which ended with a decent joke about the possibility that entrepreneurs, if they are lucky, get a movie “made about you.”

He was referring to “The Social Network,” which trashed Zuckerberg.

In any case, quarter-billion-dollar party on, Mark.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101021/liveblogging-unveiling-of-the-sfund-at-facebook-with-guest-stars-kleiner-amazon-and-zynga/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101005/winklevii-versus-zuck-whod-you-rather/ http://allthingsd.com/20101005/winklevii-versus-zuck-whod-you-rather/#comments Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:18:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34897 The Facebook movie might have performed slightly below box office expectations last weekend for Sony (SNE) movie unit Columbia Pictures, but it certainly has invaded the mainstream zeitgeist.

That’s not much of a surprise, given the relentless marketing campaign by the makers of “The Social Network,” which opened wide last Friday. It has garnered terrific critical acclaim.

Still, BoomTown was quite surprised to see a mention of the film on one of my favorite celebrity sites, TMZ.com.

Of course, because it is gossip-saturated, TMZ featured it as one of its naughty regular features called “Who’d You Rather?”

As in…well, you get the point.

This time they pitted Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg against the Winklevoss twins in a “Facebook Fight.”

“As part of the movie ‘The Social Network,’ twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss claim their Harvard [University] classmate Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea and created what is now this little website called Facebook,” TMZ wrote.

Also surprising, as you can see from the screenshot above, given what hunks of dudeness the Winklevii clearly are, is that Zuckerberg seems to be attracting one-third of the votes compared with their two-thirds.

And since there are two of them, the billionaire social networking wunderkind could be considered tied with the brothers!

Sweet justice after the slamming the Winklevii have been giving Zuckerberg in the media of late, even though they had signed a confidentiality agreement after their first $65 million settlement with him?

The Winklevii are trying to have that overturned and are inexplicably going for more, of course, which should keep the themes of the movie resonating for a while.

That will also be true if “The Social Network” garners some award nominations, especially the Oscar.

Also interesting will be to see if the movie will perform well this weekend or will drop off. It’s so far proved popular in the big cities on the coasts and in Silicon Valley, but now it has to go wide to make some real dough.

But, for sure, it will be on television eventually. Today, the FX cable network said it had bought the broadcast premiere rights to the movie.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101005/winklevii-versus-zuck-whod-you-rather/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-facebook-movie-is-here-the-critics-love-it-so-let-the-panels-begin/ http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-facebook-movie-is-here-the-critics-love-it-so-let-the-panels-begin/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:16:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34224

The world of Facebook did not stop last Friday–although its unusual downtime was kind of spooky–when “The Social Network” made its debut in New York.

The much-anticipated movie opens wide this Friday for all to see what the hubbub is about.

And for everyone in Silicon Valley to debate, of course, grokking the film that looks askance at the origins of the powerful social networking site and especially its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

BoomTown will be doing so on Friday after a 2 pm screening sponsored by Eastwick Communications, which will be followed by a panel discussion titled: “Trust, Privacy, and Ethics in the Facebook Age.”

Panelists include M. Ryan Calo, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford Law School; Matt Cohler, one of Facebook’s earliest execs (where he remains a special advisor) and now a VC at Benchmark Capital; FutureWorks’ Brian Solis; and ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik.

It sounds very lofty, but I plan to be hopped up on Red Vines and Jujubes–so please send some suggestions for questions to ask the panel to @karaswisher on Twitter.

Until then, I leave you with this terrific picture below of Zuckerberg and Newark Mayor Cory Booker at a KIPP school there that was posted by Solis.

Frankly, I don’t give a fig about whether the timing of his $100 million donation to help reform education was or was not to burnish his image, after seeing the promise on the faces of these kids.

It is hopefully one of many more to come from the vast wealth Zuckerberg will have after Facebook goes public.

In fact, I’d like to know what the Winklevii did with their $65 million payout, other than flap their lantern jaws about how they needed more dough for creating exactly nothing.

Zuckerberg might deserve a lot of smacking around for serious issues related to how he runs Facebook now and in the future–and he surely is about to get a truckload related to the founding of the company.

But for the donation alone, let’s all try to drop our deep cynicism for just one moment–even as we all enjoy a movie at his expense too.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-facebook-movie-is-here-the-critics-love-it-so-let-the-panels-begin/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20100913/the-new-yorkers-face-of-facebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20100913/the-new-yorkers-face-of-facebook/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:52:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33681

The New Yorker finally came out with its profile of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today, titled “The Face of Facebook.”

And while the magazine piece by Jose Antonio Vargas reads well, there is not much new in it for those who have followed the career of the innovative young wunderkind of social networking.

Exeter computer prodigy, Harvard computer prodigy, Silicon Valley computer prodigy. Throw in the Winklevii’s ceaseless quest to say they could have been somebody (they couldn’t have been), mix in Sean Parker and set to bake to billions.

Vargas did score a few interviews with Zuckerberg, including a visit to his current home and a short glimpse of him interacting with his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan.

But, like Zuckerberg himself, it’s kind of all gray T-shirt and hoodie and working at Facebook.

The best part is Hollywood writer Aaron Sorkin, who penned the upcoming Zuckerberg-slasher, “The Social Network,” finding out his subject loves his television classic “The West Wing.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” he responded to Vargas.

Oh, suck it up, Aaron, as Mark surely will have to when the movie comes out October 1.

Until then and as usual: Gray T-shirt, hood and, of course, Facebook.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100913/the-new-yorkers-face-of-facebook/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100823/the-facebook-movies-first-review-boffo-heres-how-mark-zuckerberg-can-take-back-the-mojo/ http://allthingsd.com/20100823/the-facebook-movies-first-review-boffo-heres-how-mark-zuckerberg-can-take-back-the-mojo/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:44:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32719

Apparently, the review is in–only one review, so far–but it’s a corker.

Although “The Social Network,” the Columbia Pictures movie about the origins of Facebook, is not coming out until its premiere at the New York Film Festival in October, Scott Foundas, a reviewer for its publication, Film Comment, is loving it in a piece in the September issue.

The magazine operates under the auspices of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which throws the film event where “The Social Network” is debuting.

After a lot of film reviewer throat-clearing about not using social networking tools, harrumphing on its global implications and then bizarrely boiling Facebook down to being “born of a romantic rejection,” Foundas writes in the review titled “Revenge of the Nerd”:

This is very rich material for a movie on such timeless subjects as power and privilege, and such intrinsically 21st-century ones as the migration of society itself from the real to the virtual sphere–and David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is big and brash and brilliant enough to encompass them all….

Adapted by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin from Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction best-seller “The Accidental Billionaires,” “The Social Network” was one of those “buzz” scripts that seemed to be on everyone’s lips in Hollywood for the past couple of years, and it’s easy to understand why. The writing is razor-sharp and rarely makes a wrong step, compressing a time-shifting, multi-character narrative into two lean hours, and, perhaps most impressively, digests its big ideas into the kind of rapid-fire yet plausible dialogue that sounds like what hyper computer geeks might actually say (or at least wish they did): Quentin Tarantino crossed with Bill Gates.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Now, I am beginning to feel bad for CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, because it looks like this film might even be Oscar-worthy for Columbia’s Sony (SNE) bosses.

But more:

From a legal perspective, it’s a thorny case of he-said/he-said, though the movie is less concerned with assigning blame than with considering Zuckerberg’s precise degree of assholedom, or lack thereof….But to the sure nervousness of the studio, and the potential discomfort of some viewers, Fincher and Sorkin chart a more treacherous course straight down the middle of Zuckerberg’s many contradictions, one in which there are no obvious winners or losers, good guys or bad–only a series of highly pressurized social (and genetic) forces.

Oh, dear, a treacherous course, well charted.

Lest I seem to suggest otherwise, I hasten to add that “The Social Network” is splendid entertainment from a master storyteller, packed with energetic incident and surprising performances (not least from Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, who’s like Zuckerberg’s flamboyant, West Coast id). It is a movie of people typing in front of computer screens and talking in rooms that is as suspenseful as any more obvious thriller. But this is also social commentary so perceptive that it may be regarded by future generations the way we now look to “Gatsby” for its acute distillation of Jazz Age decadence.

Oh, dear, Gatsby, and back to fabulous. May I have the envelope, please…

What to do then?

Here are BoomTown’s five steps to reclaim the ground in this seemingly surefire Hollywood invasion of Silicon Valley.:

1.) Even though he looked at me like I was tripping, I wasn’t kidding when I recently told Zuckerberg to attend the New York premiere. With me! (Elliot can come only if he keeps a lid on it.)

If Zuckerberg attends, he is the story, sucking the oxygen away from the movie itself, especially if he looks fly and laughs a lot.

A tux, going up to the actor who plays him and saying the resemblance is astonishing and general self-deprecation can go a long way.

Especially when you are the only one who ended up a soon-to-be billionaire, including the moviemakers and their bosses.

2.) Throw a movie night at Facebook for the staff–and make it a double feature with the excellent “Catfish,” about a scammer on the social networking site.

Then, lead a discussion group about the fact versus fiction. Ignoring this film, especially if it is a hit, does not make its impact go away.

Invite the filmmakers and all the players from back then to talk too–Winklevii alert, but this time Zuck has security! To be sure, this is a risky one, given Zuckerberg’s sometime awkwardness in public.

3.) Unveil all the original documents–and I mean all–about those years, making them available on Facebook for all to see. The Winklevoss case and others are settled now, so there seems little need to hide what was clearly a rocky start.

If Zuckerberg and Facebook truly believe in transparency, use the movie to get it all out there and be done with it.

4.) The ignoring-it option seems only available to an island like Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, who truly does not care what people think of him. On the other hand, Zuckerberg surely and clearly does.

If he wants to take the company public, why not practice with intense scrutiny here, as these incidents at the origin of Facebook are still not purged from the company.

5.) After it’s all over, live well. It’s apparently the best revenge. (Also, at least “The Social Network” is going to be much more interesting than the Google (GOOG) Movie.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100823/the-facebook-movies-first-review-boffo-heres-how-mark-zuckerberg-can-take-back-the-mojo/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20100708/another-teaser-trailer-for-the-facebook-movie-100-percent-more-poking-of-zuckerberg/ http://allthingsd.com/20100708/another-teaser-trailer-for-the-facebook-movie-100-percent-more-poking-of-zuckerberg/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:08:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30362

Here’s another teaser trailer for “The Social Network,” which makes it clear that the movie is going to be a warts-and-all-and-then-more warts portrait of the beginnings of Facebook.

Most maligned: Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who seems to be portrayed as a social networking sociopath.

Unlike the first–which uses single words such as “punk” and “genius,” foreboding music and some dialogue about the Web that sounds downright scary–this one uses a series of typed Wall messages on Facebook among its founders, including Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin.

Also making a special guest appearance: The Winklevoss brothers, who have claimed Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook (and whom BoomTown has affectionately dubbed The Winklevii!)

It’s all very intense, as you will see, especially the last line, uttered like there is some sort of sharp weapon involved: “You better lawyer up, since I’m coming back for everything!!!”

Rut-roh!

The marketing of this film about the Silicon Valley phenom should be pretty interesting to watch. Yesterday, I reported that Sony (SNE) studio unit Columbia Pictures will not be using Facebook to advertise “The Social Network,” due to issues around its advertising parameters.

But there are fan pages for the movie on Facebook, so apparently all is fair in, well, war and war.

Adding more fuel to the fire, it was just announced today the movie will open the New York Film Festival on September 24th (Elliot, will you attend with me?)

So, until the movie is out, here’s the new video of the trailer, with the first below it:

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