In which Ashish Kundra, bringer of news from around the net, passes on a friendly warning.

A few months ago, Microsoft handed Facebook a $240 million wad of cash. Microsoft's new equity boosted Facebook's estimated value to $15 billion (by comparison, that's three times Monster.com's market cap of $4.8 billion). At the moment, Facebook's ad revenues don't come close to a $15 billion dollar value, so there's something up their sleeves that we probably don't know about. We do know that they will be racing to justify that ambitious valuation by doing some more edgy—and profitable—stuff Here are a few things I've noticed or heard of unfolding on Facebook.

Newsfeed Owns You: The newsfeed was designed to increase the time of the average visit. Clearly, increasing this number means is directly increasing ad revenue. And guess what? Just weeks after launching, Newsfeed doubled the average visit time for Facebook users. Hot damn. Makes you wonder how they do it?

The content that shows up on your Newsfeed is selected to keep you on the site. That means, either you have found these people interesting in the past, or other people have found this stuff really interesting. Think about it next time you login. The people you stalk will probably show up more often than not.

Gifts are for charity. For now. Facebook invented the notion of a virtual gift and has done extremely well with it. For the time being, it seems to be all for charity, but Facebook's intentions are far from philanthropic.

When you buy a gift for a dollar (or buy an ad), you have the option of saving your credit card info with your account info. This is a BIG DEAL. Heard of Amazon's One Click Checkout? I am sure we will one day see Facebook-sponsored stores like GAP complete with a One Click Checkout. Gotta stay fly.

As the anniversary of the physical attack approaches, Bwog correspondent Alex Weinberg reels from the mental attack of 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

September 11th is fast approaching, and, like swallows returning to Capistrano, 9/11 conspiracy theorists are emerging from their basements and taking to the streets to let you all know how dumb you really are. For those who've never enjoyed their presence, just head outside for a stroll: you'll see them marching everywhere from Church Street up to our very campus, happily forcing flyers and DVDs into the palms of unsuspecting tourists. Their predatory packs are hard to dodge and impossible to miss.

Rather than promoting a political or social cause, conspiracy theorists are here to sell their story that September 11th was a lie. To them, airplane collisions could not have toppled the Twin Towers, and something else must have led to the unprecedented destruction. Let me just say that I take deep offense at this idea. Conservative commentators often deride 9/11 conspiracy theorists for their lack of patriotism or compassion or whatever, but I think this is a far too easy way of thinking. Instead, I hate them for the much more substantiative sin of being stupid and loud. To me--a structural engineering student and longtime supporter of skyscrapers and skyscraper-related causes--they might as well be protesting against evolutionary theory or the abstract notion of time.

A couple days ago, Miss Teen South Carolina was asked why she thought 1/5 of Americans couldn't locate the United States on a map. Her answer? Um...

So this afternoon, Bwog hit (newly-renovated!) College Walk and asked a sampling of Columbia students the same question.

Bwog: So why do you think 1/5 of all Americans can't find the US on a map?

Adebisi: Is that true? Public education is crap. The government wants it to remain that way.

Bwog: So why do you think 1/5 of all Americans can't find the US on a map?

Nelson: Let me think. I don't want to sound like that stupid South Carolina whatever.

More illuminating interviews after the jump...

Bwog just got wind of a terrible bit of news: Our local Labyrinth branch will soon be called Book Culture due to a business dispute with its other incarnation in New Haven.

A call to the store revealed that they plan to make the switch at the end of the week. Far be it from us to criticize branding methods, but Book Culture? Come on.

It's not looking good, Dianne.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a national free speech watchdog, has just issued a statement condemning the suspension of men's club hockey. Not that Bollinger typically listens to rights groups; but it's probably a good idea to avoid bad press on the eve of a four billion dollar fundraising push.

And then there's the online petition that's reached 454 signatures, and the Facebook group ("Bring Back Columbia Hockey") that has 460 members. The situation is bad for the Columbia hockey team--according to communications manager Zach Phillips, the suspension will put them out of commission for three years while they rebuild their league standing--but disregarding reason, warning, and due process in making consequential decisions isn't the best way to make friends, either. Student council members are baffled, and Bwog is struggling to fathom just how an administrator could screw up quite so badly.

Nope, it's not looking good at all. Start backpedaling, honey.