As congratulations rain down on new Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, her predecessor, Owen Van Natta, is left under a cloud. Van Natta left Amazon.com for Facebook when it was barely out of an Ivy League dorm, and turned it into a company with plans to take over the world. Then he got demoted. Then he abruptly left. Why? Because he wanted to be a CEO someday. But his ambitions did not match his talents, Mark Zuckerberg now implies. In Zuck's words: "With bringing in a COO, we just decided it was the right time for him to go and do that." Somewhere else. Ah, then we shouldn't call it a firing.

"Ms. Sandberg's departure is a blow to Google, where she was a well-regarded executive... Mr. Zuckerberg is 23 and Ms. Sandberg is 38, but the age difference did not stand in the way of building a working relationship. The pair met at a Christmas party last December... Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg then spent time discussing Facebook's future at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January and over a series of dinners at Ms. Sandberg's home in Atherton, Calif." [NYT]

A tough message to deliver: "Mr. Zuckerberg is also seeking to hire ... a vice president of communications and public policy, says Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker." Barker's title? Director, a level below VP. Mark Zuckerberg isn't just hiring someone over Barker's head; he sent her to relay the news to the Wall Street Journal. The position's so new that it's not yet listed on Facebook's website. Is this how Zuck told his spokeswoman she wasn't getting the VP job? Harsh, dude. (Photo by Brandee Barker)

Why did Sheryl Sandberg leave Google to become Facebook's COO? Let's be real: Even if Facebook one day grows into its $15 billion valuation, it's unlikely to unseat the world's dominant player in online advertising. Sandberg had a great gig running AdWords, the engine of Google's profit. Her job had only two drawbacks: sales chief Omid Kordestani and Shona Brown, head of business operations. Sandberg disliked those two executives enough to be open to Facebook's approach. Mark Zuckerberg, a suggestion on how to spend a very small part of Microsoft's $240 million: Send Kordestani and Brown thank-you gifts.

Frustrated Googlers have at least one new hire at Facebook worried.

Does Mark Zuckerberg read Valleywag? Facebook's young CEO isn't known for taking unsolicited advice, but we suggested he hire Google executive Sheryl Sandberg just two weeks ago. Well, that was fast: BoomTown reports Sandberg's been hired as Facebook's COO. Sandberg is Facebook's first woman executive, and she's older than Zuckerberg's 20something brain trust. But demographics are not the reason this hire is striking.

Did Microsoft price you out of the market when they paid $240 million for for less than 2 percent of Facebook? Lucky for you, there's FaceTag, available now on eBay for just $15,000. The listing, below.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook platform czar Adam D'Angelo announced new limits on developer spam last night. Facebook used to allow app makers to send 20 friends application invites a day. Developers are now seeing limits of around 8 to 12 per day. Facebook's platform minders also changed the format of invites, moving an unsubscribe link up. "Top developers" hate the news, according to Inside Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg is chastened. 587,715 members joined a protest group called "Students against Facebook News Feed" the day after he rolled out the feature, and ever since, he's been very careful with changes to his social network. You know, except for that whole Beacon thing that ruined Christmas. Still. Fits and starts, people. Fits and starts. Here are screenshots of Facebook's new profile format. If they don't cause riots, Facebook flack Meredith Chin says the new profiles will come out sometime this spring.

The best thing about Facebook is that it isn't a blinking mass of glittery images and horrendous, unreadable "designs," right? Perhaps not for long. Now application developers can use Adobe's Flash in their work. This will be nice for musicians who want to embed their music or whatever, but how long until auto-play emo starts blasting from my speakers while I'm trying to stalk catch up with old acquaintances? Please, Mark Zuckerberg, I beg of you: Keep these people in line. God forbid Facebook ever become as ugly — or as popular — as MySpace.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to hire a well-known executive to help him run Facebook, BoomTown reports. It's like when Google founders Brin and Page hired a then-obscure Eric Schmidt away from Novell, except Zuckerberg wants to keep the CEO title. "It has to be someone who does not overshadow Mark," a source told BoomTown, "But also someone who can challenge him when he needs challenging."

Did you know Mark Zuckerberg is 27, not 23; went to Stanford, not Harvard; lives in San Francisco, not Palo Alto; and sold a financial research firm? That's the story that Match.com user TheDayDreamr would have you believe. He's used several pictures of the Facebook founder to decorate his profile. Since Zuckerberg's mug has been on magazine newsstands from coast to coast, it's hard to imagine what TheDayDreamr is thinking. He claims to be a "young, successful man" who "decided to retire" after selling his company. If he's so clever, wouldn't he have picked a handsomer face to borrow? The full, faked profile:

Here's a chart which records traffic to Facebook's privacy-settings page. What does that indicate? It shows just how little Facebook users seemed to notice the whole Beacon controversy. AllFacebook, which put together the chart using Compete.com, says the chart is evidence that users need better privacy education. We say users are just ready for a brave new world.

Geek-loving cover girl Julia Allison turns 27 soon and all she wants — other than a MacBook Air and whole long list of stuff — is a boy, "tied with a red bow, like a new car for graduation." Knowing Julia's taste for geeks like Kevin Rose and some guy who used to run some video site, we figured: Who better to help Julia land a new man than Valleywag readers? So help her out and vote in our latest poll.

Once Mark Zuckerberg's right-hand man, Owen Van Natta is leaving Facebook in a couple of weeks. Van Natta, who openly aspired to be CEO — of Facebook or another company — was demoted from COO to vice president of revenue operations last summer. While he downplayed it at the time, it was a clear signal Van Natta was getting no closer to the executive suite. One question: Will Facebook buy back Van Natta's shares at the company's $15 billion valuation? Private companies sometimes do that for departing executives. Whether Facebook extends that lucrative courtesy to Van Natta will be the best indicator of ator of how friendly his departure was.

OK, we were wrong. The 1,500 volunteers who translated Facebook from English into Spanish in just four weeks were rewarded with more than just the "impact of their contribution." They got this gift from billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Click to expand the image. And your jealousy.

"TMZ seemed to be straining to find material" when it posted video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week, the New York Times reports today. A week later. Then reporter Maria Aspan cites a Valleywag commenter at the end of the article. Clearly, we're witnessing the decline the of an old media dino — Wait. The New York Times quoted a Valleywag commenter? OMFG! JediTilo, you got quoted in the freaking New York Times. Count me impressed. Me and your mom.

Here's Mark Zuckerberg speaking at Stanford back in November 2005. The Facebook founder says,

"By the time I was done throwing together the site, I had no idea how successful it would be," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Stanford back in 2005. "By day eight or nine I had a different idea I wanted to do. I was going to scrap it." But that wouldn't have shown that "bitch" Jessica Alona, would it have, Zuck?

In just four weeks, 1,500 Spanish-speaking Facebook users translated the entire site, which will appear in Spanish to all users from Spanish-speaking countries starting February 11. Right now, that's about 2.8 million active users in Latin America and Spain. What did these users get for all their hard work?