Roman Holiday: Mark Zuckerberg Treats New Bride to Cheap Honeymoon Meal

Courtesy Twitpic

He may be one of the world's youngest billionaires, but that doesn't mean Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg passes up on a bargain.

The 28-year-old billionaire, who married longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan in a Top Secret ceremony the day after he took Facebook public on the New York Stock Exchange, proved once again that he's not a lavish spender. Jetting off to Rome for their honeymoon, the newlywed couple enjoyed a simple lunch at out-of-the-way Italian trattoria Nonna Betta, hidden in the Eternal City's Jewish Ghetto. The happy couple dined on a simple but hearty Italian repast featuring Roman style artichokes, ravioli in an artichoke sauce and fried pumpkin flowers. No alcohol was consumed by the pair, who chose to drink tea and water instead. The bill came to a very reasonable €32, around $40.


The pair also enjoyed some sight-seeing on their Roman Holiday, taking in the sights of the Sistine Chapel, Roman Forum, The Colosseum as well as famed Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The couple later enjoyed dinner at the decidedly more upscale  Pierluigi's Restaurant, where they dined on delicioso prawns Catalan style, oysters and fish carpaccio, followed by lobster pasta and flame grilled fish washed down with an expensive bottle of Chardonnay Gaia e Rei.

It may be that Zuckerberg is minding his finances very carefully, in light that his social media mega-site has lost a good portion of its pre publicly traded value. Although he might have skimped on lunch, he did fork out a pretty penny for accommodations, arriving in Rome by private jet and booking a suite at the ultra-chic Portraits Hotel owned by fashion designer Salvatore Ferragamo overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome's fashionable Piazza di Spagna.

Facebook Status Married: Mark Zuckerberg Weds in Secret Ceremony

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced he had married by updating his relationship status on the social media website he created after a secret wedding ceremony.

The joyful news comes one day after the young mogul took his company public in one of the most anticipated stock offerings in Wall Street History, which saw the company's value set at a staggering $104 billion.

Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend, 27-year-old Priscilla Chan, at a small, secret ceremony at his relatively modest Palo Alto, California, home. Invited guests were initially told the gathering was to celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school from the University of California, San Francisco, but were surprised to learn they would be attending a wedding instead.

The intimate ceremony took place in  Zuckerberg's backyard before fewer than 100 guests, including Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. Because the guests believed they were attending a graduation party, most wore casual attire more suitable for an outdoor party. The groom did not wear his requisite hoodie, selecting a suit and tie instead, with his bride in a beautiful traditional wedding dress with veil.


The wedding is only one part of a very busy week for the tech billionaire, who celebrated his 28th birthday this past Monday. 

Facebook Acquires Instagram in $1 Billion Deal

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed his company was acquiring free photo sharing application Instagram in an astonishing deal worth a staggering $1 billion!

The social media mega-site announced the acquisition in a message on its web site, stating that the deal to buy the San Francisco-based Instagram would be worth roughly $1 billion in cash as well as stock in Facebook.  The deal is expected to close later in the quarter.

"Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an official online statement regarding the acquisition.

Instagram has become extremely popular for its application that can add special effects to current, modern photographs and make them appear more retro, similar to photos taken with old-fashioned Polaroid or Kodak Insta-Matic cameras.

Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take photos, apply a filter, and share it on the service or a variety of other social networking services, including social media and blogging sites Facebook, Tumblr, twitter, FourSquare and Flickr. The application is compatible with any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 3.1.2 or above or any Android device running Android 2.2 or above.

Facebook Makes Us :( Says Author

"Knowing that all my Facebook friends live a more exciting & fulfilled life than me makes me :(..."

Social media juggernaut Facebook has completely changed the way people all around the world communicate with one another, but the change isn't all good, claims author Daniel Gulati, who blogs for the Harvard Business Review.

Gulati asserts that while recent, controversial changes to Facebook are geared toward making members share more information about their daily lives, this is actually causing people to feel more depressed about their own lives by making everyone else's lives seem more interesting and happy! “Facebook is bringing down a lot of people’s daily sense of well-being," says Gulati.

The author claims that Facebook is leading to a loss of productivity in the work environment, with millions updating their status while on the clock. It can also negatively impact close relationships, while inspiring jealousy and bitterness.

“Meeting up in person, you get a much richer connection versus a video chat or a text-based chat.  It’s cannibalizing the offline interaction. That’s what’s worrying to me — the future prospect of Facebook conversations and video calls as opposed to meeting up at the local coffee shop.” Although Gulati doesn't advocate deleting your Facebook profile, he does suggest limiting the amount of time you spend on the site by selecting one day a week to avoid visiting the social media site completely. He also suggests deleting Facebook applications from mobile devices to avoid the constant temptation of checking the site, as well as pruning your list of friends of people with whom you rarely have any contact.