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.

On Facebook, Jimmy Wales has just one question for you: Are you interested? If you're cute and female, he is. We're told Wales will friend just about anyone who fits that description. Since his breakup with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden became public, he's sanitized his Facebook profile, dropping most of the racy apps. Even so, his profile still shows evidence of a promiscuous approach to adding people. Here's a screenshot:

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

Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers is a demanding critic—not even Evelyn Waugh's brilliant The Loved One impressed her enough to receive that fifth star in her Facebook book ratings—so her three-out-of-five stars to travel writer Lawrence Osborne's The Naked Tourist are no surprise. Except that travel writer Lawrence Osborne is her boyfriend. Maybe Spiers just knocked off those two stars as punishment for Osborne taking her to Brazil on the world's worst airline? (And They All Die in the End, Spiers' first novel, is due this summer.) UPDATE/CORRECTION: Spiers comments, below.

"Gaddamn. Is that foh realz?" — Anonymous Googler, on word of Sheryl Sandberg's departure to Facebook.

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.

Facebook investor Peter Thiel plans to pay someone who adheres to a "specific strain of Christian philosophy" $100,000 to $200,000 a year to give away his money. A tipster tell us that the strain is Stanford professor Rene Girard's. Girard's big idea is something he calls mimetic desire, which posits that the only reason I want a Wii so bad is because everybody else wants a Wii so bad. This is called the triangulation of desire. Girard has a 52-minute clip on the Web in which he explains how the theory relates to Christianity. Or, there's this clip from Grey's Anatomy, which YouTube user nefariouscarrot claims illustrates mimetic desire.

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.

Andre Balazs' Standard Hotel chain set up a fake profile on Facebook, under the name of "Stan D'arde," as a marketing tool. Stan was "a self-described 38-year-old, bisexual male from Haiti whose religion is 'couture.'" Yes, of course. [Mixed Media]

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.

Dutch technology entrepreneur Evert Bopp had the pleasure of meeting with Irish tax inspectors last Tuesday. Things got really fun when one of them pulled out printed copies of Bopp's Facebook, Xing and LinkedIn profiles. "I was surprised," Bopp said. He shouldn't have been. A flack for the Revenue service told the Irish Independent auditors are free to use "any sources of information." You think the IRS policy is any different? It's one thing to get busted by the boss, quite another to get busted by the feds. (Photo by chadmill)

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.

It turns out obnoxious former Star editor Joe Dolce and lying author James Frey, who became Facebook buddies on Valentine's Day, share more than just slimy backgrounds. Dolce's boyfriend and reported husband John Burnham was the "idiot" at HarperCollins who paid Frey more than $1 million for his forthcoming novel Bright Shiny Morning, one source reminded us. Should make for some fascinating Wall postings.

Venture capitalist Lee Lorenzen has profited from the hype about Facebook applications. And he'd like to share. In a message he sent to reporters — the recipients were apparently chosen because they wrote about two of his startups, Adonomics and TheUADA — he's offering to let them invest in a financing round for the companies. I'll spare you the lectures about journalistic ethics: Michael Arrington already writes about startups he's invested in at TechCrunch. Why can't everybody play this game? Ah, well, there's the hitch in Lorenzen's plan: He likely has no clue how little money reporters make, compared to the programmers and executives of the Valley. While buying into a startup on the cheap in a seed round might sound like a promising investment, most journalists would rather get a guaranteed 18 percent return by paying off their credit cards. Why not just send reporters a check for every positive story they write? That seems easier. Here's Lorenzen's letter:

Now we know why Bebo's so eager for more cash. It needs more servers. According to Pingdom, Bebo has already been down for 12 hours and 28 minutes so far this year. Check out the full chart to see how 13 other social networks have fared so far.

When he was editor in chief of Star magazine, Joe Dolce would let nothing, not even a wedding, or journalistic ethics, keep him from telling a tawdry story. At least that was the idea, until Dolce found himself looking for a new job. A year later, Dolce has dusted himself off and taken the first critical step toward rehabilitating his image: becoming Facebook friends and, no doubt, lifetime soulmates with writer James Frey, another fallen purveyor of overaggressive, ethically-challenged "nonfiction." Dolce added the lying author of a Million Little Pieces to his friends list on Valentine's Day, which is just really sweet. Maybe he can convince Frey to accompany him on one of his travel-writing assignments — it's ethically challenged and everything, James! — and then learn the secret to profiting fabulously from infamy, as Frey did with the $2 million advance on his forthcoming novel.

Trying to keep the Poors out of its exclusive social network, the Financial Times is charging £2000 for an annual membership in the "FT Media and Technology Executive Membership Forum." This includes discounts on FT conferences, where all the real networking is done anyway. Really, can you imagine joining this site and messaging another exec because you don't have enough pull to e-mail them? I can, and that's why this is such a terrible idea for anyone with valuable time.

• Hide your online status in the privacy settings.

Traffic-tracking service Nielsen Online claims Facebook lost 400,000 U.K. visitors from December to January. Mark Zuckerberg & Co. say no way:

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.