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Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is said to be leaving Facebook after six years after returning from maternity leave. In her massage for the Facebook team, Randi said she is thankful to the strong mentor-ship and guidance she received at Facebook. She said I want to show that you don’t have to be an engineer to become a successful hacker.

Randi who had led Facebook’s consumer marketing team, is leaving to start her own company called RtoZ Media. Facebook says the company is “grateful for her important service.”

Few details are currently available but it is rumored that the venture will likely build on Zuckerberg’s work at Facebook. Randi was responsible for some very big projects such as Facebook Presidential Primary Debate, ABC & Facebook Live Election Night Coverage in 2010 and Davos/Facebook partnership. According to some of the social media experts, this resignation may allow Randi to work indirectly with some of the other social media giants such as twitter and may be Google Plus.

Facebook has just landed a with Baidu, the largest search engine based in China, to start a jointly-owned social network in China.

Its been reported that the new venture won’t involve Facebook.com, which is blocked inside China along with many more social networking sites, but a jointly owned, new social networking website. Details of the deal are still unclear when we can expect the site to launch, but joint ventures are required to be approved by the Chinese government. While both sides await approval they have to hire staff with along with experienced executives that both sides can agree on.

Only a year ago Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg traveled to China and met with Baidu CEO Robin Li. The deal makes seems to make sense for both sides. For Facebook, it needs a big local partner to break into the huge Chinese market, and Baidu is threatened by social network juggernaut Tencent, and it might be a safer bet to build a social network with one of the most successful social companies in the world than to try to build its own.

On Thursday, Facebook unveiled their new high tech and futuristic-looking data center in Prineville, Oregon. Even more impressively, the project is open source, meaning Facebook will actually share what the company has learned about designing energy-reducing, cost-efficient computer servers and data centers.

Facebook claims their green data center uses 38 percent less energy to do the same work as its existing facilities, while costing 24 percent less – and they want other companies to adopt the technology.

The Facebook data center uses custom-designed servers, power supplies, server racks and battery backup systems to achieve an initial power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.07, compared to 1.5 for its existing facilities. In the winter, the data center will re-use hot aisle air to heat offices.

Facebook also announced the formation of the Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that it says will share best practices for creating the most economical and energy-efficient data centers. Facebook will start by publishing specifications and mechanical designs for hardware including motherboards, power supply, server chassis, server racks and battery cabinets. The specs can be found at www.opencompute.org.

Facebook is reportedly in talks to hire President Obama’s former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for a senior communications role, the New York Times reported.

No formal offer has been made yet to Gibbs, but after two years at the White House, the president’s ex-spokesman has high-level ties that could be attractive to Facebook as it prepares for the world’s largest-ever public offering — valued by some investors at more than $60 billion, according to The Times.

Gibbs would work under Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vp for global communications, marketing and public policy who joined the company from Google in 2008. (more…)

Websites like Groupon and Living Social have exploded onto the scene in recent years. They help businesses raise their profiles through discount offers. Now, Facebook will soon start testing its own service in several U.S. cities: Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco and San Diego.

The company already offers Facebook Deals through Facebook Places, its check-in service. Its new daily deal service will work with Deals, though it will be very hard for Facebook to steal first place from market leader Groupon. Still, whenever the social network enters a new market, it has one huge advantage: 600 million users and counting.

Daily-deal services supposedly account for a third of all the ads on Facebook. Clearly the social network wants to take down the competition, but it wants to make sure its generating that extra revenue before it does.

“Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find deals in the coming weeks,” the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said in statement today.

Facebook hopes to avoid pitfalls, such as those Groupon encountered when some small businesses were so overwhelmed by customer responses they could not keep up and ultimately suffered losses.

Facebook plans to sell the deals through its own sales team, as well as working with partners such as Gilt City, Home Run, Pop Sugar City, Tippr, KGB Deals, Plum District, Reach Local, Zozi, and Open Table.

With more than 600 million users, Facebook certainly has the critical mass and the social mojo to tap into the booming online deal market and compete with market leaders Groupon and LivingSocial. Facebook will showcase deals and encourage users to share those deals with friends. What’s going to lead to this program’s success is that users can “unlock” a deal and share that discount with friends. Facebook testing showed that people were more likely to buy a deal if one of their friends bought it first. It makes perfect sense: Getting that great deal on dinner for one just isn’t as fun if you can’t share it with others.