The Facebook story: from inception to IPO Just over eight years after Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook has officially gone public today. And, what better time to dig back into the company's history, as documented by everyone from The Harvard Crimson and The New Yorker to Zuckerberg himself? Whether you're figuring out whether to invest or want to see how the world's most popular social network has evolved, we've put together a special IPO day edition of the best writing about Facebook – and several notes from Zuckerberg himself. The Verge
Diablo 3's launch fiasco proves video game journalism fails We've been seeing a constant trend lately, one that involves three groups of people all working towards different goals: we have consumers who want to buy and enjoy a product, publishers selling said product, and journalists reporting on the publisher's product. One thing that seems to be happening more and more frequently is that when consumers get burned and get pissed, publishers close their ear-holes and journalists lash out at consumers to get back in line and take the beating. Gaming Blend (also, Opinion: Why the problem with Diablo isn't Diablo via RPS)
Blow up the box High in the Frank Gehry-designed IAC building on the West Side Highway, floor-to-ceiling windows flood the offices with blinding sunlight in the afternoon, which is when Barry Diller takes a seat to answer some questions. Wearing a light-gray sweater and black driving loafers without socks, his blue eyes alert behind delicate gold-rimmed glasses, Diller looks younger than his 70 years, probably a product of a life lived equally in the professional realm and aboard the Eos, his 305-foot yacht named for the Greek goddess of the dawn. New York Magazine
Gree, DeNA stocks plunge as Japanese government cracks down The stock of both leading Japanese mobile social game companies dropped over 20 percent today following comments from Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency that a key game mechanic is in violation of the law. Other Japanese game companies that use the mechanic, including Konami and Capcom, also saw significant stock declines. Gree's founder, Yoshikazu Tanaka, lost over $700 million yesterday because of Gree's 23 percent plunge in stock value. GameIndustry
US "six strikes" anti-piracy scheme delayed Soon the file-sharing habits of millions of BitTorrent users in the United States will be monitored as part of an agreement between the MPAA, RIAA, and all the major ISPs. Those caught sharing copyright works will receive several warning messages and will be punished if they continue to infringe. However, it now appears that the much-discussed July start date will have to wait until later in the year as the parties involved may fail to meet the provisional deadline. TorrentFreak
Make mainframes, not war: how Mad Men sold computers in the 1960s and 1970s Madison Avenue's strategy for popularizing computers shifted from the 1950s through the 1980s. At first pitches focused on reliability and speed, but by the 1960s, advertising brochures put big systems in gardens next to fashion models. When PCs came on the market, the sales pitch changed again. Computing went family friendly, with endorsements from Bill Cosby, William Shatner, and even Charlie Chaplin. Ars Technica
The AMD Trinity review (A10-4600M): A new hope Brazos and Llano were both immensely successful parts for AMD. The company sold tons despite not delivering leading x86 performance. The success of these two APUs gave AMD a lot of internal confidence that it was possible to build something that didn't prioritize x86 performance but rather delivered a good balance of CPU and GPU performance. AnandTech
How Yahoo killed Flickr and lost the Internet Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea. Gizmodo
Will work for fun Revolutions are often thought of in terms of conflict and disorder, but they just as often come on waves of peaceful obsolescence. The old way of doing things is allowed to linger as long as it likes while everyone else gets on with the future. In the last few years the "free-to-play" model – where games are given away on mobile phones or online while the developer makes money through advertisements or the sale of in-game items – has encircled the videogame industry. Kill Screen
Microsoft quietly launches So.cl social network In the wake of the IPO of social-networking giant Facebook, Microsoft has quietly launched So.cl, its own social networking foray. However, So.cl isn't designed to be a Facebook challenger. The project, the details of which leaked out last year, is designed to give students the ability to network with their peers to share information. CNET