Mark Zuckerberg Now Richer Than Larry Page & Sergey Brin on Forbes 400

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rocketed past Google CEO Larry Page and co-founder Sergey Brin on the 2011 installment of the Forbes 400, the 30th installment of Forbes’ annual list of the richest Americans. Here's a quick rundown of the richest men in search and social and their net worth as of August 26.

14. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO/President, $17.5 billion. Last year, Zuckerberg was 35th on this list with a net worth of $6.9 billion. Others with Facebook ties on the list include Dustin Moskovitz (91st, $3.5 billion); Sean Parker (200th, $2.1 billion); and Eduardo Saverin (212th, $2 billion).

15.(tie) Larry Page, Google CEO, $16.7 billion. Last year, Page was 11th on the list, with a net worth of $15 billion.

15.(tie) Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, $16.7 billion. Last year, Brin was 11th on the list, with a net worth of $15 billion.

19. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, $13.9 billion. Last year, Ballmer was 16th on the list, with a net worth of $13.1 billion.

50. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, $6.2 billion. Last year, Schmidt was 48th on the list with $5.45 billion in net worth.

273. Kavitark Ram Shriram, Google shareholder, board member, venture capitalist, $1.6 billion.

375.(tie) David Filo, Yahoo co-founder, $1.1 billion. Last year, Filo was 356th on the list with a net worth of $1.15 billion.

375.(tie) Jerry Yang, Yahoo co-founder, $1.1 billion. Last year, Yang was 356th on the list with a net worth of $1.15 billion.

Other familiar names of note on the Forbes 400 list include Apple’s Steve Jobs (39th, $7 billion) and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder (293rd, $1.5 billion). Microsoft founder Bill Gates topped the list for the 18th straight year with a net worth of $59 billion.

Vanity Fair’s New Establishment 2011

Zuckerberg also beat out Brin and Page on another list of tech power players, Vanity Fair’s New Establishment top 50 list, which appeared in the magazine’s October issue. This was the second year Zuckerberg topped this list, though Page and Brin jumped up one spot from 2010. Eric Schmidt was added to Vanity Fair’s top leader’s “Hall of Fame.”

Also appearing on the list: Jack Dorsey, Twitter (5th); Dick Costolo, Twitter (11th); Hoffman (18th); Robin Li, Baidu (25th); Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook (26th); and Dennis Crowley, Foursquare (45th).

Source: Facebook To Launch Read, Listened, Watched, And Want Buttons

The cat is out of the bag that Facebook is going to launch something big at its developer conference f8 this week. We’ve heard about the social music services that could be debuting in a few days, but as the New York Times conveyed this past weekend, Facebook is planning for ways to surface personal content better. And we’ve heard from a source that Facebook will introduce new buttons on the wall that will begin introducing some granularity to the “Like” concept. We’re told these new buttons are “Read,” “Listened,” “Watched.” The network will also soon launch new social commerce buttons like “Want” following the introductions of the aforementioned buttons.

It’s important to qualify that this is from a source (and not from Facebook) but from what we hear, Facebook users will be able to click Read, Listened, Watched on content in their news feed. And soon, “Want” as well.

And it’s unclear what will happen to the Like button and how these new buttons will affect the Like button. And we don’t know what Facebook will do with this data, but there is so much the network could do with the data from these buttons. It seems pretty obvious that ad targeting would be a huge opportunity as well as the capability of delivering a more personalized experience for users. Not to mention that brands, retailers, entertainment companies and other businesses will be able to gain segmented data around the Like.

If all of this is starting to sound a bit like Facebook’s infamous Beacon project, it shouldn’t be too surprising — from what we’ve heard a key part of these new Facebook features is to provide Beacon-like functionality in terms of auto-populating News Feed stories based around intent and actions. But they’ll do so without the advertising and privacy ramifications. At least for now…

The introduction of these new, granular buttons would certainly add more depth to content surfaced by media sharing apps as well as from retailers, which is in line with previous reports of what’s being launched. We’ll keep you updated on what else we hear is in the pipeline for f8 (and we know what’s not being announced: Project Spartan).

Larry Summers calls Winklevoss twins 'A**holes'

What did Larry Summers really think of the Winklevoss twins?

"Rarely, have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind," the former president of Harvard said in an interview at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were at Harvard at the same time that Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, and they had come to Summers for help in their fight for a piece of the action.

Summers dismissed them, a scene dramatized in the movie the "Social Network."

Summers didn't try to dispel the portrayal.

"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 a**hole. This was the latter case."

The Winklevoss twins have taken dozens of runs at Facebook in court since 2004. The brothers and a third Harvard classmate, Divya Narendra, have alleged that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for Facebook from them.

Facebook promptly countersued the trio and their own social networking site, ConnectU, alleging that they had hacked into Facebook to steal data and spam users. The legal volley of claims and counterclaims went back and forth until 2008, when the Winklevosses and Narendra signed a settlement valued at $65 million, part in cash and part in Facebook stock.

But the trio later tried to pull out of the deal, alleging that Facebook had misrepresented the value of its stock. A judge ruled against them and forced the settlement to go through, but the Winklevosses and Narendra took the case to an appeals court.

In April, Judge Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, attempted to put the kibosh on the case. "At some point, litigation must come to an end," Kozinski wrote in his decision. "That point has now been reached."

In June, the twins abandoned their plans to appeal to the Supreme Court for an unwinding of their 2008 settlement, and followed up a day later with a new motion in Boston federal court.

Baidu signs deal with music labels

Chinese search engine Baidu has struck a deal with leading music labels ending years of legal wrangling over rights.

Baidu signed an agreement with a joint venture owned by Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music to distribute music through its mp3 search service.

Baidu, China's biggest search engine, will pay the owners of the music rights on a per-play and per-download basis.

China is the world's biggest internet market with close to 470 million users.

Baidu has been involved in legal tussle with the music labels. It has been accused of steering consumers to third-party websites where pirated material is hosted.

However, the company said that all outstanding litigation between the parties involved had ended as part of the deal.

Facebook may launch Skype-powered video chat

New York: Social networking site Facebook is planning to launch a video chat function next week for its millions of users in association with Skype, says a report.

'Facebook will launch a new video chat product, powered by Skype, that works in browser,' technology blog TechCrunch said citing a source.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week tipped off press that the company would be launching an 'awesome? new product next week that has been built by Facebook's Seattle team.

However, the press invitations to the event did not disclose anything more than 'please join us for an event at Facebook on July 6.' The partnership could substantially increase Skype usage, which currently has 170 million users.

In addition, the move would 'certainly help Facebook become even stickier for users as they start to have voice and video chat as an option to communicate.' It has more than 750 million active users. The report said that product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component.

However, it's not clear whether it will work if a user has already installed Skype on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype.

The social networking site has been introducing various services in order to capture more online users. For instance, it has launched a new payment system - Facebook Credit - in India.

Facebook engineers copy Google+ with ‘Circle Hack’ app

A group of Facebook engineers have made a new application, called "Circle Hack," which allows Facebook users to organize their friends in the same way Google+ users can create Circles.

There’s been quite a bit of talk about how Google ripped off some of Facebook’s features with its new social network, Google+. But it seems the biting goes both ways. Now, a group of four Facebook engineers have launched an unofficial Facebook app called “Circle Hack,” which allows users to organize their friends into lists in a near-identical fashion to the “Circles” tool in Plus — one of our favorite features.

Since Circle Hack works in exactly the same way as Circles — even if it’s graphical interface isn’t quite as pretty — anyone who’s already on Google+ should know exactly how it works.

Since Plus is still technically closed to the general public (though there are a few ways around the wall), we’ll give you a quick run-down on how it works: Go to the Circle Hack Website, where you are presented with a white, no-frills landing page. Click the blue “login” button, where you will have to login to Facebook (if you aren’t already). You will then be asked to allow the application to access you Facebook information.

From there, you will be taken to a simple page, with each of your friends displayed as a box on the screen. At the bottom of the screen is a grey box that says “Drag here to create new list.” Pick a category you’d like to place a group of contacts, like “Family” or “College Buddies” — whatever you like. Like Google+’s Circles, you don’t have to drag each friend into the box individually. Simply click each friend you’d like to add to the group. Their contact box will turn blue. Once you’ve picked everyone you want to include (though you can add people later if you miss someone), simply click and hold on the last one you choose, and drag the whole group into the box.

From here, Circle Hack will prompt you to create a name for the group, which you can enter in a drop-down menu that automatically appears. Enter the name, click accept, and you’re done. Simply repeat that process for each group you’d like to create.

That’s all the functionality that exists, however, so anything else you’d like to do, like change privacy settings, edit the group or anything else, you have to do within Facebook itself. But it does simplify the process of making friends lists, which requires clicking your “Friends” icon in Facebook, selecting “Manage Friend List,” and then, on the next page, clicking on “Create a List.”

To actually use your friend lists once you’ve created them is an entirely other headache altogether, and requires customizing the privacy settings for each individual post, so this feature isn’t exactly practical. What it does show, however, is that Facebook — or at least some of its engineers — are taking Google+ seriously. And they should.

Facebook to launch ''something awesome'' next week: Zuckerberg

Boston: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a surprise up his sleeve for the over 500 million users of his social networking site with the billionaire CEO today saying his company is planning to "launch something awesome" next week.

Zuckerberg, speaking at his company''s office in Seattle, did not divulge any further details apart from saying that the company planned to "launch something awesome" next week. However, it is being speculated that the new feature to be launched could be in the mobile or tablet space. A report in the Los Angeles Times said there are various mobile products in development at Facebook, including the release of a long-awaited Facebook app for Apple''s iPad and a specialised app for photo-sharing on the iPhone.

"We are working on a number of exciting things that we have not yet announced, but stay tuned for next week," the report quoted Facebook director of engineering Andrew Bosworth as saying.

The project has been developed at the 40-person Seattle office, which is Facebook''s only major engineering hub outside of its Palo Alto, California headquarters.

In the past, the Seattle office has played a key role in Facebook''s mobile efforts, the report said. Facebook''s Seattle office has made a mark on the company''s mobile efforts, playing a central role in the development of Facebook''s unified mobile site, unveiled in March, it added.