Link Banana

The weirdest — or perhaps most sensible — rumor you’re likely to hear today is this one:

According to Zach Klein and his valley sources, the Mormon Church’s Family History Department has made a bid to acquire Facebook:

I heard from an employee close to the deal that the Mormon church’s genealogy business made an unsolicited bid to acquire Facebook.

The Mormon Church maintains the largest genealogical database in the United States and apparently has the cash reserves necessary to make an offer of the magnitude necessary to acquire Facebook.

(via Mike Rundle)

Andrew Chen used Google Insights to put together a pretty interesting comparison of what (web 2.0-y) internet sites are most popular in which US states.

(via Waxy)

This has been making the rounds, I’m surprised how much I liked it.

The surest sign that Facebook is “the next Google”?

But by all measures gastronomic, Google was still the dominant firm—until now. One of Google’s current chefs is Josef Desimone, who is admired chiefly for the kombucha tea that he ferments from scratch and that gets the employees’ creative juices flowing. Now however, Mr Desimone is smelling the coffee. He has given notice to Google, and will soon start work at Facebook. On Wall Street, no doubt, the short sellers have taken note.

Also, technically kombucha isn’t even a mushroom. But “a symbiosis of bacteria and yeast” was too long for the title.

PBS’s Cringely’s latest column seems as much dissatisfied with Facebook clutter as it is about anything, but there are a few interesting points.

The tip-off that we’re nearing the end of a cycle is the flight to quality we’re seeing from some of the bigger players. At Facebook, for example, you can no longer register using an e-mail address from an anonymous mail site like Mailinator, Operamail, or Countermail. Facebook demands that you take an extra three minutes and get a Yahoo Mail or AOL mail address for example. This is clearly the company pruning its subscribers in anticipation of an acquisition in the next couple quarters. There is no other reason to do it. MySpace isn’t doing it despite a very real sex offender scandal, but then MySpace has already been sold and Facebook hasn’t yet.

Once Facebook has been taken and one or two others, the golden era of social networking acquisitions will be over and the entrepreneurs will be headed for that Next Big Thing.

Le Monde — yes, it’s a French newspaper, but you don’t need to know the language for this — has a neat map of what social networks are most popular around the world. I knew that Orkut was popular in Latin America, but I was rather suprised that Friendster’s at the top in Asia.

Related: The Economist’s infographic about “Facebook fatigue.”

Rajaa Alsanea offers a small window into the love lives of young Saudis.

Where I come from, dating in the Western sense is not acceptable, either socially or religiously. Though most Saudis sympathized with “the Qatif girl” — a young woman who was gang-raped while in a car with a male friend, then sentenced to 200 lashes for “mingling” — and relieved when King Abdullah pardoned her last year, that does not mean that sitting with a strange guy in his car is considered appropriate.

Some daredevils do meet in coffee shops or restaurants that have partitions to separate the tables so nobody can see the illicit couples. After all, being a Saudi means knowing what the rules are — and how to sidestep them without getting in trouble. But most young women prefer to get to know the guy through accepted channels like the Internet, friends, family or the phone.

These days, Saudi relationships start on Facebook or through Bluetooth. We “date” over the phone or by instant messaging, and we enjoy exchanging gifts — through our chauffeurs or housemaids.