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The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Facebook has made a habit of advancing its interests at the expense of its customers, whether by weakening its privacy policy, tracking users' movements around the Web or radically reconfiguring the way information is displayed on the site's pages. So it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that while the company's initial stock offering was a boon to the company and insiders, it's been a costly disappointment for the general public. Now, some investors are accusing the company and its bankers of playing the public for suckers, sharing pessimistic revenue projections with a few insiders but not average investors.

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

New home sales are up. The unemployment rate is falling. Companies are buying one another, signaling confidence in the economy. But investors are turning their back on positive economic signs, looking nervously at Europe's seemingly never-ending debt troubles and Facebook's flat IPO, wondering whether the global economy is beginning yet another deep dive. "Although better economic data did not go unnoticed, investors look forward and not backward," said David Dietze, president and chief investment strategist at Point View Wealth Management in Summit, N.J. "All eyes are looking across the pond and seeing a bit of a meltdown in terms of the European sovereign debt crisis.

So, against all odds, you managed to get your hands on a few shares of Facebook stock via one of the most hyped initial public offerings of all time and managed to survive its messy first day of trading. Congratulations. You're now married to Mark Zuckerberg. The 28-year-old company founder is today one of the most deeply-entrenched chief executives in American business. Thanks to a two-class stock structure, Zuckerberg will own about 28% of Facebook but control 57% of all shareholder votes.

Thanks to Bitly, the popular link-shortening service, we can add another tool to our arsenal of tricks to get noticed on social media. Timing our tweets, and Facebook and Tumblr posts right. Researchers at Bitly have put together data that show that for each of the top three social media networks -- Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr -- there are optimal times for posting links to maximize click-through, and times when you might as well be posting into a vacuum. They also found that the optimal time differs, depending on the social media site.

Maintaining privacy in the digital age is no easy feat ? particularly if you are the subject of a movie. And yet Angela Wesselman-Pierce, the woman who holds the key to the mystery at the center of "Catfish," has remained a quiet enigma for more than eight months since the movie became a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival. She's avoided requests for interviews about the film, which is being marketed as a documentary thriller and has taken in more than $1.6 million at the box office since its Sept.

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

SAN FRANCISCO — How does a 28-year-old make $400 million in 18 months? With the right idea at the right time in mobile apps for smartphones. Kevin Systrom won the start-up sweepstakes this week when Facebook Inc. said it would pay $1 billion in cash and stock for his photo-sharing app maker, which has a loyal following of 30 million users but never made a dime. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called Systrom to personally negotiate the deal for the social media giant, which is expected to fetch a valuation of $100 billion as soon as next month when it begins selling shares to the public.

A study on how people use social networking websites such as Facebook confirms what many of us suspected. Women who post loads of photos of themselves on their sites are conveying some strong personal characteristics, according to new research. These women are more likely to base their self-worth on appearance and use social networking to compete for attention. The study involved 311 men and women with an average age of 23. In order to better understand aspects of social networking behavior, the researchers looked at the amount of time subjects spent managing profiles, the number of photos they shared, the size of their online networks and how promiscuous they were in terms of “friending” behavior.

Yahoo's latest entry into mobile search hopes to find the Axis of easy with its new iPhone and iPad app plus a desktop plug-in. Yahoo's Axis aims to make search easier, director of product Ethan Batraski told The Times. Search is an inefficient process that has remain unchanged, involving the same three-step process it always has for the last 15 years: Launch a query, get results and then explore results, he said. Axis removes the middle step of a returning search results page of links, instead returning a snapshot of the actual Web page and "turns search into a companion, not a destination," Batraski said.

Congress is getting involved and investors have become angry, but despite another rough day for Facebook at least its stock price finally closed with a daily gain. After closing at $31 Tuesday, Facebook's stock ended up with a $1 gain Wednesday, closing at $32. It was good news for the company, which had seen its stock sink further after each of its first three days of trading, but it appeared to be the only good news Wednesday for the social networking giant.

Facebook Inc. is set to open an office in Dubai next week, its first location in the Middle East. The company announced the news Wednesday by inviting journalists to an event scheduled for May 30. While the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said details of the new office would not be released until the event, the office would add to its collection of about 30 outposts scattered across the globe, according to the Associated Press.

Ever want to video chat with a few of your closest friends? How about 11 of them at the same time? That's what video chat service ooVoo offers free through Facebook and a new iPad app. The company, whose name represents two sets of eyes looking at each other, lets users access video chat rooms from the iPhone and Android phone over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE as well as via Web and desktop apps. The desktop apps allow up to 12-way chat, screen sharing and sharing of files up to 25 megabytes.

WASHINGTON -- Two congressional committees are looking into the troubled initial public offering of Facebook Inc., aides said Wednesday. The Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee are both conducting preliminary inquiries, though neither has started a formal investigation or set hearings to specifically address concerns raised about the IPO, the aides said.

WASHINGTON -- A class-action lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Facebook Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co., and the other Wall Street banks that underwrote the Facebook's initial public offering, alleging they misled most shareholders about revenue projections for the social network. The suit, filed in federal court in New York, alleged that the IPO prospectus and registration statement were "false and misleading" and violated the Securities Act.

There wasn't much to like about Facebook's first day as a public company. The social media giant's stock rose by mere pennies in its initial public offering. The shares closed at $38.23, barely above the $38 IPO price. The performance fell far short of the grandiose expectations of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and raised questions about whether the company's stock will be the sure bet many had counted on. "There was all this pressure and hype and attention with all eyes on Facebook — and the starlet tripped on the red carpet," said Max Wolff, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital Management in New York.

Facebook has filed papers for what's expected to be the largest initial public offering ever to come out of Silicon Valley and one of the largest in U.S. history. Ending months of breathless speculation, the 8-year-old social networking company has submitted registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that set a preliminary goal of raising $5 billion. Facebook is expected to be valued at $75 billion to $100 billion. Final pricing will not be set for months, and the size of the IPO probably will increase with investor demand.

Facebook is having a better day on Wall Street. The social networking site's stock is up more than $1, or about 3.5%, to around $32 in early trading Wednesday on its fourth day as a public company. As of Tuesday, Facebook's stock had fallen about 26% since its debut on the Nasdaq stock market Friday. The stock briefly rose to about $42 from its initial public offering price of $38. Facebook's IPO has been tumultuous. Its first day of trading was marred by glitches with Nasdaq trading.

Congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg on his surprise wedding last Saturday. I certainly hope his marriage gets off to a better start than Friday’s initial public offering of shares in his social networking colossus, Facebook.  Wall Street analysts are now saying the opening share price of $38 was too high for investors wary of buying into a business that delivers millions of messages and photos from college drinking parties but produces a comparatively modest revenue stream.