Jesse Eisenberg is the actor that will be playing Mark Zuckerberg in a movie called The Social Network. The Social Network is a movie based on the founding of online social network Facebook. Facebook was founded by Zuckerberg in a dorm room when he was attending Harvard University. However the movie will not be filmed at Harvard. It will be filmed at The John Hopkins University.

“It feels degrading somehow,” stated John Hopkins student Diego Ardila while he watched movie scene workers remove the words “Latrobe Hall” from an engineering building and replace it with “Kirkland House.” The reason why Harvard would not allow The Social Network to be filmed there is because they have a policy that no commercial filming can be made on campus.

As the BaltimoreSun.com put it, John Hopkins felt like a “safety school” by the film because they could not get Harvard. Just like John Hopkins is considered a safety school for kids that also applied to Harvard. This is why many students that walked around the set made sure to wear John Hopkins shirts and hoodies hoping that it would end up being seen on the final cut of the movie.

Eisenberg recently starred in Zombieland with Woody Harrelson. The ironic part of Zombieland is that one of the lines stated by Eisenberg’s character is that one nice thing about everyone being zombies is that you no longer have to read Facebook status updates from friends.

ValleyWag posted the following screenshots of the movie set:

Yahoo! ex-President Sue Decker had stepped down back in January shortly after Yahoo! co-founder hired Carol Bartz as the new CEO. It was uncertain what Decker would do next because her dealings with Microsoft were considered to be a series of missteps. When Decker was on Yahoo!’s board, Microsoft offered the company $31 per share as part of a buyout. Decker and Yahoo! decided against the offer and now Yahoo!’s stock price is below $15 per share.

Now it has been revealed what she plans to do next. Decker will become an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Harvard Business School. At Harvard, Decker will work with students that are interested in starting their own companies. Decker will work with Professor Tom Eisenmann and Senior Lecturer Michael Roberts. She will also deliver presentations for HBS’ Immersion Experience Program (IXP).

There are currently two high profile RIAA lawsuits taking place.  One of them involves a Harvard professor and the other involves Jammie Thomas-Rasset.  Now the lawyers in both cases are forming a partnership to file a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA to get back the $100 million that they claim the recording industry stole.

Kiwi Camara represents Jammie Thomas-Rasset in a lawsuit that the RIAA filed against her.  There is a retrial taking place in Minnesota next week.  Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson is representing Boston student Joel Tenenbaum in an RIAA trial as well.  Kiwi and Charles are the ones getting together to file the $100 million class action lawsuit against the RIAA.

Camara did an interview with Ars Technica earlier this week and revealed two pieces of evidence that will help his case.  MediaSentry was hired by the RIAA to track down the IP address of those who share files.  Camara is arguing that MediaSentry is not licensed as a private investigator in Minnesota.  This makes them running an illegal “pen register” and their evidence should be barred.

Another approach that Camara is considering is making the RIAA prove that they own the copyrights in question.  If the RIAA or MediaSentry cannot prove any of the above scenarios, then the cases will fall apart for them.  Camara’s approach is quite unorthodox.

Camara said that the RIAA basically committed a “technical screw-up” when it came to claiming the proper copyright ownership.  The RIAA lawyers provided courts with “true and correct” copies of the evidence, but they were not “certified copies” required by federal rules of evidence.

The RIAA asked the judge to take judicial notice for these claims, but the judge refused.  The recording industry will now have a limited amount of time to file for the certified copies.  Camara already has rebuttals in mind just in case the RIAA is able to get all of the certified copies necessary for the case.

More news on the trial as it develops.  Kudos to Ars Technica for their thorough coverage of this case.

[via Ars Technica]

Before Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University, he attended a private boarding high school called Phillips Exeter Academy.  Education at this elite high school has a tuition cost of $37,960 for boarding students per year and $29,330 per year for day students.  The school was established in the 1780’s and has alumni that comprises of politicians, major executives, celebrities, etc.

When Zuckerberg was at Harvard he worked for a company on campus called ConnectU that was started by Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra.  He quit that company to start his own company called TheFacebook.com.  Zuckberg reportedly turned down offers to be acquired by both Microsoft and Yahoo! after it had started growing rapidly.  The origins of the name TheFacebook.com may have started at Exeter itself.

Below are a couple of images from Exeter of their annual student directory.  The student directory is titled “The Photo Address Book” but has the nickname of “The Facebook.”  David W. Farrant, a student at Exeter that graduated in 2000 confirmed with ReadWriteWeb that The Photo Address Book was called The Facebook by students because the original name was a mouthful.

When Zuckerberg was a senior, student body president Kris Tillery pushed to have the student directory published online in 2000.  It turned out that they did take the student directory online under the URL: http://student.exeter.edu/facebook.  This website is not online anymore.

While Zuckerberg was at Exeter, he developed an artificial intelligence music player software that Microsoft and AOL both had interest in.  Both companies also wanted to recruit Zuckerberg to their companies, but he decided to go to Harvard instead.   At Harvard, Zuckerberg also started a service called Facemash which was similar to Hot or Not, but pulled photos of student dorm photos.  Admins at Harvard were not happy with that service so they had him take it down.

And that is one of the origins of Facebook.  If Zuckerberg did not attend Exeter, there probably would not be a Facebook today and Friendster would still be the place to be.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

I’ve heard of Madoff’s employees selling paraphanalia, personal license seats at the New York Jets stadium, and even the title of the Lord of the Manor of Warleigh on eBay.  But this is the first time I’ve heard of a personal gene-sequencing auction taking place on the website.

Knome Inc. is the first company that offers personal genomics and they are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The auction will begin tomorrow and will last 10 days.  The opening bid will be at about $68,000.  The standard price that Knome charges for the gene-sequencing service is $99,000.  Last year the company was charging as high as $350,000.

Even though this is a hefty price, scientists believe that it will take a few years before it will cost only $1,000 to determine all 6 billion units in a DNA sequence within the 46 chromosomes.  This genetic information would be able to predict risk of disease and the most ideal medication.

Although it is not known how many customers Knome has, the company had an increase in business around December.  Kompolt Cause Media is the company that is running the auction for Knome.  In the past, Kompolt ran the auction for selling a lunch date with Warren Buffett.  The winning bidder will also get a private dinner with Knome co-founder and Harvard University scientist George Church.

[via NYT]

Charles Nesson is a Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School and Founder/Faculty Co-Director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.  Nesson is also doing what many song downloaders would praise in legal fights with the RIAA.

Nesson is defending a Boston University undergraduate student in a case where the student is being taken to court for downloading copyrighted music.  Nesson is seeking out to prove that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional.  The RIAA uses this law as civil enforcement and to intimidate people into settling out of court.  Nesson believes that this method abuses the legal process.

Nesson’s goal is to “turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency [Wired].”  Thus far only one case in relation to copyrighted music downloading has been taken to trial.  All other circumstances have been settled out of court.

Joel Tenenbaum is the graduate student being represented by Nesson.  Tenenbaum was sharing 816 music files on Kazaa in 2004.  He offered to settle with $500, but the RIAA demanded $12,000 instead.  If Tenenbaum’s actions were willful, he could be forced to pay $1 million.

Nesson believes that there are ways that the record industry could deter piracy without demanding large rewards from file sharing individuals.  The RIAA could provide music for free, but bundle it with ads.

[image credit: Harvard.edu]

As a new college graduate, it is of my interest to ensure to report about the involvement of higher institutions in the world of Web 2.0.   As you may know, I previously reported when the University of Wisconsin inked a deal with Google Print and how IBM added a Web 2.0 class to the University of Arizona.

Bill Gates officially signed as the commencement speaker at Harvard University’s graduation ceremony this year on June 7.
This is a big moment for Gates as he will be speaking at the very same university that he dropped out of.  A couple years ago, Steve Jobs (founder of Apple) delivered a very dynamic commencement speech at Stanford University.  I look forward to reading Mr. Gates’ transcript after the ceremony as well.

“I am very pleased that the Harvard community will have the opportunity to hear from Bill Gates on June 7,” stated Paul Finnegan, the president of the Harvard Alumni Association. “His contributions to the world of business and technology, and the great example he has set through his far-reaching philanthropy, will rightfully put him on center stage in Harvard Yard. I look forward to greeting him in June.”

Gates will receive an honorary degree from Harvard.

Another interesting announcement made today was that the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is introducing a master’s program that focuses on social networking. 
Through the Michigan’s School of Information (SI), students will be able to register for the first graduate-degree specialization in social computing.  The program will also offer specializations in Incentive-Centered Design, Community Informatics, Information Analysis and Retrieval, Preservation of Information, Information Policy, Library and Information Services, Archives and Records Management, and Human-Computer Interaction.

“The depth of our curriculum in social computing is unparalleled. Rather than a single course as you might find in other programs, we offer a range of in-depth courses in the technologies and applications that are driving the Web 2.0 revolution,” stated professor Paul Resnick.

As a current Ann Arbor resident, I am glad to see the University of Michigan taking initiative in training students about the importance of Web 2.0.  Google founder, Larry Page and Skype founder, Niklas Zennström were both educated at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.