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Zuckerberg is adamant: Facebook is not building a phone

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg didn't mince words when he reiterated to analysts and investors that the social network has absolutely no intention of building its own mobile phone.

"We're not going to build a phone," he said during the social network's earnings call Wednesday. "It's not the right strategy for us to build one integrated system...Let's say we sell 10 million units -- that would be 1 percent of users. Who cares for us?"

I can think of plenty of people who care -- investors in particular. The company'… Read more

Zuckerberg to hold fund-raiser for New Jersey governor

Though Silicon Valley tends to support Democrats, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is throwing his might behind Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Zuckerberg is holding a fundraiser at his house for Christie's reelection campaign. The February 13 event will be Christie's first out-of-state trip for this campaign and, reportedly, the first political fund-raiser Zuckerberg is holding at his home. Friends and colleagues of Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are attending the event, and they'll shell out no more than $3,800 -- New Jersey's limit on contributions.

Zuckerberg hasn'… Read more

Zuckerberg's vision realized: One graph to rule them all

Mark Zuckerberg's vision for a world in which people are connected to each other for all time has remained unrealized, despite his best efforts with Open Graph and Timeline. But with Graph Search, he may have finally found the last piece of the puzzle.

"Our mission is to make the world more open and connected," the Facebook CEO said last year at the TC Disrupt conference. "We do this by giving people the power to share whatever they want and be connected to whoever they want, no matter where they are."

In Zuckerberg's world, … Read more

$100 to Facebook message Mark Zuckerberg? Bargain!

LAS VEGAS -- I woke up this morning wanting to tell the world about all the fun last night.

I wanted to tell Beyonce about how much one woman told me she had worked in order to get her man to put a ring on it.

I wanted to tell Britney Spears that there were still people in the world who adored her music and some of them are here in Nevada, worried that she's leaving "The X Factor."

And I wanted to tell Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that I had met so many fine young people … Read more

Steve Jobs tried to help Mark Hurd regain his job, says report

A fascinating nugget turns up in BloombergBusinessweek's excellent piece on Hewlett-Packard: None other than Steve Jobs reached out to offer counseling to Mark Hurd after Hurd had walked away from his job as HP's CEO.

Three days after he'd resigned as CEO under pressure from the company's board of directors, Hurd received an e-mail from Steve Jobs. The Apple founder wanted to know if Hurd needed someone to talk to. Jobs had lived through a similar experience decades earlier when Apple's board turned on him, an analogy Hurd and Jobs's mutual friend and Oracle … Read more

NBA makes Mark Cuban pay $50k over critical tweet

A little advice to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban: if you don't agree with an NBA referee, it's probably best to keep your fingers away from Twitter. It can cost you big time.

Following a three-point Mavericks loss to the New Orleans Hornets on Saturday, the Cuban took to the microblogging service to gripe about some officiating that occurred during the game:… Read more

German state threatens Zuckerberg with $26K fine

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is facing a 20,000 euro ($26,000) fine over the social-networking site's failure to offer German users anonymous accounts.

According to The Guardian, the data protection commissioner of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein has written to Zuckerberg and to Facebook Ireland threatening the fine if Facebook continues to ban anonymous accounts. According to the data protection authority, forcing users to provide their real identities is a breach of German law, under which the country's citizens have the right to use online media services anonymously.

"It is unacceptable that a US portal like … Read more

Gates, Ellison, other tech moguls got richer last year

It's said that the rich get richer. And that's certainly true at the moment in the tech world.

Grabbing Bloomberg's No. 2 spot among the world's top billionaries, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has an estimated worth of $63.4 billion as of yesterday. Despite donating a hefty amount of money to charitable causes, Gates' net worth managed to rise 1.1 percent over the past year, making him the richest tech mogul on the list.

Worth $40.7 billion, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison saw a 3.6 percent gain in his fortune last year. The largest … Read more

Zynga puts PetVille and more out to pasture

Say goodbye to PetVille, FishFille, Mafia Wars 2, and a slew of other games from the folks at Zynga.

The video game studio has reluctantly pulled the plug on 11 of its gaming titles, as detailed by blog site TechCrunch.

The list of casualities encompass some of the company's most popular games, most of which were playable online through Facebook and a few that were available as iOS or Android apps.

PetVille - Shut down as of yesterday. Mafia Wars 2 - Shut down to new players as of yesterday. FishVille - Shut down December 5th. Vampire Wars - … Read more