If you can stand it, it's worth watching a particular excerpt from CNBC's interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg twice. First watch the version CNBC put on the air, embedded above. In that clip, Zuckerberg answers a question sounding sure of himself, speaking in clear, declarative sentences, and smoothly using his talking points, not just rattling them off. Compare it to the clip below of Zuckerberg answering the same question in an unedited version of the interview CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin embedded on her blog. The difference shows CNBC editors' talents — and just how far Zuckerberg has to go before it's safe to put a microphone near him. It all goes downhill after Zuckerberg begins to answer a straightforward softball from Boorstin — "What is the new site design and what does it mean for the user experience?" — by saying, "So for those of you who don't know, I, we just announced, um and launched, started rolling a new site design."

Microsoft is inking a deal to run its search results and keyword-linked ads on Facebook, CNBC reports. Make no mistake: Facebook employees share every bit as much disdain for Microsoft's lame Web efforts as the rest of Silicon Valley, despite the company's $240 million investment. So this news is unwelcome, and painful. But inevitable. What caused it?Facebook's slapdash decisionmaking about ad placement on the site, a direct result of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's endless dithering on the subject in the process of redesigning, led to the Microsoft search deal. In the end, Facebook decided to kick Microsoft's tacky banners off its homepage and users' profile pages, in favor of its own targeted Social Ads. That was a violation of Facebook's advertising agreement with Microsoft, of course, requiring a renegotiation of the deal. Microsoft, of course, was ready with its quid pro quo: Search advertising, a market Facebook has yet to tap, but was likely to eager to try to explore itself. Instead, it's running Microsoft search results, and Microsoft search ads, both of which are considerably less attractive than Google's because they draw a smaller base of users and advertisers. A hard lesson for Zuckerberg: Every decision has consequences, and pursuing his whims has costs.

The only word to describe Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at the company's second annual F8 developer conference.? Awkward. In this clip, Zuckerberg tries to demonstrate how useful Facebook platform applications are by comparing iLike to MySpace, Zynga to Las Vegas and Causes to — wait for it — Al Gore. Clearly, Zuck's speechwriters meant the whole thing as a kind of joke — the kind they should have known Zuck wouldn't be able to deliver. As usual, Zuck throws his employees under the bus for his inability to speak in public: "Not sure where the team came up with these examples. They're pretty funny." Yes, Mark, we're not cringing at you, we're cringing with you!

AdWeek's Brian Morrissey reports that "Microsoft banners will run across the site, but will no longer appear on the homepage and user profiles." Instead, Facebook's largely automated direct-sales operation will sell placements for one large slot or two smaller slots on the right side of each page. These ads might be video ads as well as static text over image ads, Morrissey reports. A source tells us Facebook's ad units are also changing to a more standard size — a move that will make them easier to sell.

COO Sheryl Sandberg and PR chief-turned-platform politician Eliot Schrage, Facebook's no-fun adults, are fully in charge of Facebook. The latest evidence? Facebook's second annual F8 developers' conference has another "hackathon." But unlike last year's all-night session, it hardly deserves the name. It starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m., presumably so Schrage can go home and get a good night's sleep before calling reporters on the East Coast to tell them of Facebook's fabulous new platform achievements. Developers are still raging about the notion that Schrage, a PR guy, is in charge of Facebook's development platform. At a recent party in San Francisco, Ben Ling, the technical guy behind the platform, was spotted rolling his eyes when Schrage's name came up.

One possible explanation for the disappearance of ads from Facebook's redesigned site: Facebook didn't want to place advertisers' messages on not-quite-ready pages. So much for that theory: Ads have reappeared on Facebook's beta site, placed to the right instead of the left. Why the sudden turnabout? Likely because there's an internal war raging about the placement of ads on Facebook, with stubborn founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg the most resistant. Expect more coming and going of ads on Facebook: We hear the company is testing entirely new ad products, which may replace the current Social Ads shown here.

Developers have been raging about Mark Zuckerberg's redesign of Facebook's user profile pages, at last unveiled today. But advertisers might soon find reason to fuss, too. The new design has no conventional ads — not the banners sold by Microsoft; not the smaller, demographically targeted ads sold by Facebook in its Social Ads program. True, there's some white space on the right where ads might go; but the page's HTML source code doesn't have any hooks for ads in that area. Should advertisers be horrified that Facebook is taking some of its most-viewed inventory — users' profile pages — off the market?

Facebook will not launch a payments system for its platform application developers at the upcoming F8 conference. Inside Facebook says though Facebook engineers are working on a system, it just won't be ready in time — even though Facebook began asking developers to participate in a payments beta test last December. Silicon Alley Insider offers a stranger explanation: The Facebook payments system hasn't come out yet because Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg "hasn't bought in to the idea completely."

The much-anticipated and long-delayed redesign of Facebook's profiles are live. Click through to see yours. We'll continue to harp on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his poor interpersonal social skills, but we have to credit him for an outstanding job with the redesign. We're relieved to find the new profile is both clean and rich with big pictures, videos and comments. Ugly apps designed by less aesthetically aware third-parties are gone from sight. Even moving the user photo from the left to the right side of the profile somehow works. Not everyone is a fan. When we told one widgetmaker "looks pretty good," he responded "if you like FriendFeed." "Or Tumblr," we joked. It's funny because it's true — we do like Tumblr.

Responding to Facebook's latest iteration of its soon to be launched site redesign, user Josh Taylor Cross from Canterbury High School writes: "Please don't. Like...really....DONT." The cause for alarm? You might want to sit down. Facebook's latest mockups show profile pictures moved from the left side of the page, where they've been since founder Mark Zuckerberg first created TheFacebook.com, all the way to the right. Will society survive?

Released court transcripts from the last skirmish in the ConnectU-Facebook legal battle — in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was charged with nicking the code for his site from a rival social network — reveal why ConnectU founders Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler WInklevoss returned to the fight this summer after settling with Facebook in February. It seems they thought their original lawyers didn't make as much from the deal as the ConnectU founders thought they would. In the February settlement, ConnectU sold itself for Facebook shares which the founders figured would have a value similar to those bought by Microsoft, which paid $240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook, valuing the company at a notional $15 billion. The transcripts show that while Microsoft bought preferred stock in the company, ConnectU's founders were awarded common shares. That kind isn't worth nearly as much. In fact, given the problems Facebook shareholders have had selling their private shares, the settlement might not be enough to pay ConnectU's legal bills. The founders' first team of lawyers have asked the Judge not to award ConnectU its settlement funds until its legal bills are paid first.

The legal case opened by ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is closed, but the courtroom drama continues. CNET has filed an objection to San Jose District Court Judge James Ware's decision to close the courtroom and put all the evidence under seal. What's in those documents that might be so interesting? Facebook's internal valuations, for starters. But most intriguing are the purported instant message conversations that the plaintiffs were led to believe provided proof that Zuckerberg is a little thief. (Photo by AP)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hasn't moved the company quickly enough toward an IPO for some shareholders. According to reports, some have begun trying to sell their shares at a steep discount to the $15 billion valuation afforded by Microsoft's $240 million purchase of a 1.6 percent stake last fall. One such shareholder, supposedly a Facebook employee, tried to sell 0.25 percent of the company at a $5 billion valuation in April and could not. More recently, a shareholder represented by California money manager Bill Dagley — possibly the same one — has been trying to move shares at a price that values the company around $3 billion to $4 billion. Back to your caves, Facebook bears. That shares are on the block at a price much lower than Microsoft paid does not suggest Facebook's value is spiraling downward.

Facebook will announce this week that it's brought Silicon Valley wunderkind turned Web 2.0 grumpy grandpa Marc Andreessen onto its board of directors. Andresseen will fill one of the two open seats on Facebook's five-person board. Founder Mark Zuckerberg and investors Peter Thiel and Jim Breyer make up the rest.

When Facbook and the ConnectU founders who say Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their code settled in February, ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra figured they were getting stock in a company worth $15 billion. Not so, according to Facebook laywers and the federal judge who ruled in their favor. From the Judge's ruling:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may not have strictly stolen the code he wrote for others but kept for himself to start Facebook. But the company is certainly garnering a reputation for appropriation. FriendFeed has offered comments on items from other services piped into a single update timeline. Now you can do the same with Facebook updates. [VentureBeat]

One in a while a Web application comes along that's so damn useful, even we'd invest in it. Facebook? Nah. MakeMeBabies, the site that lets you create ruddy-cheeked mashups from any two photos? Its diapers will be filled with nothing but spun gold. Here's what the site came up with from photos of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and girlfriend Priscilla Chan. After the jump, we give a few other notable couples the same treatment. Please do add your own in the comments with our image-upload feature — best and worst fake babies will win an as-yet-undetermined prize of nominal value!

Facebook employees losing the $600 monthly rent subsidy aren't the only ones moving out of Palo Alto. With plans to grow by more than 1,000 employees this year, Facebook is planning to move from its cluster of rented offices sources tell BoomTown. Relocation options include the old Hewlett-Packard buildings west of Palo Alto as well as office parks in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. At least one young man at the company isn't happy about it, though.

On the "yellow carpet" at the SpikeTV Guy's Choice Awards, Mahalo Daily host Lon Harris asked Tila Tequila what it would take for Facebook to woo the über-popular MySpace user. "A big fat check," she jokes at first. But after a little prodding, she admits that an appeal to the heart might also work, "if the person or whoever runs it is hot and takes me out on a date." Harris proceeds to explain that 24-year old co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is "pretty hot." He must like guys with long necks and big ears.

Originally scheduled for release in April, pushed back to June after developers freaked out, Facebook's site redesign is now delayed until July. "Launching in July gives us more time to make sure we release the best possible profile design to our users and developers," Facebook's Pete Bratach wrote on the company blog. While perhaps clumsily handled, the delay is probably a good idea. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will give a keynote at Facebook's second annual developer conference on July 23. Drumming up anticipation for a big reveal won't turn Zuckerberg into Steve Jobs overnight, but it might help keep the focus on what he says, not how awkwardly he says it.