ReadWriteWeb

Some weeks ago, I happened to drive by an evangelistic church whose outdoor marquis speaks about as well of the present times as any I've come across. "And there followed hail and fire mixed with blood," it read, "and they were cast upon the Earth. Like us on Facebook!"

The initial public offering of Facebook stock, now likely to come in May, is as much a test of faith as any corporation has ever given its prospective shareholders. To Facebook's credit, its prospectus, as given in its Form S-1 filing yesterday, makes its plea completely and carefully. Many companies provide a perfunctory paragraph to investors under the "Risk Factors" heading. Facebook's entry reads like a self-indictment.

You have to admit, he's getting better at this. Four years ago, in response to numerous public complaints - many of them in court - about its plans to share aggregate user data with third parties, Facebook responded in a flat, dismissive tone that users were given every opportunity to opt out of behavior sharing. So what they don't opt out of is effectively their own problem.

Today's settlement between Facebook and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission effectively ensures that the company can no longer take this specific stance without facing intense U.S. government scrutiny. But in the intervening four years, Facebook has become a veteran of government scrutiny, including from the Canadian Privacy Commissioner and throughout Europe. And it has gained a lot more skill at adapting its semantics to strike the right political and often psychological tones.

Pop singers Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber visited Internet singing sensation Rebecca Black at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco today for Google, on behalf of Facebook. Indicating the social media is seldom seen so tranquilizer freedom, Bieber indicated his Lady Gaga fans held up Twitter as the most frequently Googled site from Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg applauded the concatenation.

"Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber performed Rebecca Black's song at our campus and I Twittered it on Google."

Earlier tonight, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on American TV news program 60 Minutes where he was interviewed by Leslie Stahl. In the interview, Zuckerberg talked about his life, his company, now worth an estimated $35 billion, and the Hollywood portrayal of Facebook's beginning's in the critically praised film "The Social Network."

60 Minutes also got a sneak peek at the new Facebook profile pages, which are being rolled out gradually, according to a post on the official Facebook blog. The new profile pages will be available to all of Facebook's 500 million users by early next year, says the company.

It's hard to deny that the U.S. education system faces a multitude of challenges: lack of funding, overcrowded classrooms, high drop-out rates, falling test scores (not to mention the pressures of testing altogether). The phrase and legislation "No Child Left Behind" leave a bitter taste in many people's mouths as our schools often focus on a one-size-fits-all model that does, in fact, leave many students behind.

With a controversial article last month in the LA Times that the undertook a "value-added" analysis of local teachers to ascertain their "effectiveness," and with the release this week of the new documentary Waiting for Superman by Oscar winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, the subject of education is getting a lot of press over the last few weeks. And while a national "conversation" about the subject is crucial, our schools - our kids - deserve more than talk.

In a recent interview, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg flat-out denied earlier reports that the social networking company was building a so-called Facebook phone. "Our whole strategy is not to build any specific device or integration or anything like that. Because we're not trying to compete with Apple or the Droid or any other hardware manufacturer for that matter," Zuckerberg said.

He also denied reports that the company is building its own operating system (OS), such as one that would compete with Google's Android mobile OS, for example. However, when asked about a "Facebook-branded phone," things became a little fuzzy.

Today, a Bloomberg report may have figured out why he was hedging. According to multiple unnamed sources, Facebook is working on two "Facebook phones" with handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd., the report says.

Last month, Wired magazine set off a furious debate with a feature titled: "The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet." The crux of the argument was that people are spending less time on the open Web and more time using apps.

It's undeniable that apps are in vogue. But does that mean the open Web - the one we access through a browser - is dead? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really hopes not.

As an early adopter of an unknown service called "The Facebook" back in 2004, it is impressive to see the growth and change that has come to the site. When many of the earliest members joined, a university email address from a select list of institutions was required to sign up. Eventually, nearly every college was opened up, then came high-schools and after that - everyone. Today marks another significant milestone in the history of the Web's most popular social network as Facebook has passed the 500 million user mark.

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook's recent privacy changes were not nefarious, but rather an unselfish pursuit of "a concept called data portability."

As the one of the people who popularized that concept in relation to social networks, and as a founding member of the organization representing that cause, I'd like to call bullshit on that.

According to an email from the Facebook CEO earlier today, Facebook is planning some changes to their much-debated privacy policies.

Mark Zuckerberg told blogger Robert Scoble, "We're going to be ready to start talking about some of the new things we've built this week."