1. Based on “public safety and quality of life concerns,” Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer has rejected a permit request from MTV to shoot upcoming episodes of a Jersey Shore spinoff featuring J-Woww and Snooki in her town. Smart lady. [via Fox News]

2. In other MTV-related news, the network is teaming up with Logo on It Gets Better, an hour-long special on the struggles of LGBT teens; hosted by Dan Savage, the show will chronicle the stories of three young people and include appearances by celebrities like Zachary Quinto, Margaret Cho, and Chaz Bono. [via EW]

3. Rumor has it that after the stock market closes today, Facebook will submit its paperwork to regulators for a $5 billion IPO, making it one of the biggest market debuts in US history. (For reference, Google’s IPO was a mere $2 billion.) [via The Daily Beast]

4. Taran Noah Smith — aka gawky Mark, the youngest and most forgettable of the Home Improvement brothers — was arrested last night and charged with a DUI and possession of hash. This is what happens when you’re a child star who grows up in the enormous shadow of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. [via Gawker]

5. It looks like Ridley Scott is interested in directing The Counselor, Pulitzer-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy’s first attempt at a spec script; given that the “disturbing and powerful” story features two women in its leading roles and is set in the Southwest, we think that the Thelma and Louise helmer could be an excellent fit. [via Vulture]

Bonus Buzz: NASA Engineer Reveals Secret Of Space Cats

The social listening revolution is upon us. As TechCrunch reports, Facebook is rolling out a new feature that allows users to hear the music their friends are hearing. Here’s how it works: status updates and chat windows will be tricked out with “Listen With” buttons that, when pressed, will open a chat room for the original listener — who becomes the DJ — and everyone who’s tuned in to what she’s streaming on Spotify or (eventually) Rdio. Facebook will cap the number of users in any given room at 50.

If this sounds a whole lot like Turntable.fm to you, well, that’s because it is. TechCrunch predicts that this development “will force Turntable.fm to concentrate on public listening rooms and celebrity DJs, as simultaneous listening with friends will now be Facebook’s domain.” Business Insider is less delicate in its analysis of the conflict between the two companies: “Facebook Just Fired A Cannonball At One Of New York’s Hottest Startups” reads the headline on its piece. Considering that we learned, about six weeks ago, that Turntable’s traffic had declined sharply since the summer, we have to wonder whether the startup is in for a rocky future.

Today at Flavorpill, we smiled after learning about John Lennon’s crazy cat lady side and members of his kitty family, including Elvis and Jesus. We were impressed with and giddy over this documentary about VHS culture and couldn’t wait to get home to watch a few tapes. We got hungry reading BuzzFeed’s list of taco-related crimes. We thought this Neil LaBute exhibition sounded appropriately subversive. We tried to imagine a world with a nationwide tooth-brushing law and lots of ponies after reading Time‘s story on Vermin Supreme. We wondered about The New Yorker‘s article on women in fashion that got under Refinery29′s skin. We wished Liquipel had been around last time we spilled coffee on our phone. We saw what happens to our luggage once it leaves our hands at the airport. We watched The Hobbit get sweded. We wanted to live like Downtown Abbey for a day. We imagined what it was like for an agoraphobic to hit the road and meet 325 Facebook friends. And finally, we loved time travelling in San Francisco with this impressive interactive map.

Oh, sure, it’s easy to hit “unfollow” on Twitter, but for some reason, pulling the plug on Facebook friends is more difficult — perhaps because the terminology of “unfriending” actually forces you to admit that your relationship with that junior-high volleyball buddy is over. With that in mind, it’s illuminating to learn what drives people to unfriend: over 55 percent of respondents to a new Nielsen survey will boot an acquaintance who makes offensive comments, while 41 percent will dismiss someone they just don’t know well (which raises the question of why they accepted the person’s friend request in the first place). Meanwhile, Nielsen also learned that the single most important factor in adding a friend is knowing them in real life — which may seem obvious, but does give us a little bit of hope that social media isn’t entirely exploding the boundary between real-world friendships and virtual ones. See the entire infographic and learn more about the study at Nielsen. [via Gawker]

Every year, the American Dialect Society chooses a word of the year — and they’re not the only ones. This week, we found out that Merriam-Webster has already chosen their own word of the year: “pragmatic,” which we’re not sure reflects the state of the nation. The American Dialect Society chooses their word of the year based on the following criteria: the word must be “demonstrably new or newly popular in 2011, widely and/or prominently used in 2011, indicative or reflective of the popular discourse and not a peeve or a complaint about overuse or misuse.” They also stipulate that “Multi-word compounds or phrases that act as stand-alone lexical items are also welcomed.” To give you a better idea: last year, the world they picked was “app.” We’ve come up with a list of a few of our nominees for possible words of the year, but of course there are many more — let us know which words you would nominate in the comments! Read More »

Remember a few years back when a blogger called Firmuhment created an illustrated guide to different websites as food? We absolutely loved it. Now Caldwell Tanner of CollegeHumor has gone the equally entertaining, although far geekier route, and assigned some of the Internet’s most popular destinations with corresponding Justice League characters; for example, Facebook with its “utility belt full of newsfeeds, sidebars, and other pointless gadgets,” is Batman, “an eccentric young billionaire whose company is used by basically everyone.” Arch nemeses? 4Chan and Tumblr. Now that you get the gist, click through to find out if you agree with the rest of his picks. Read More »

Occupy Wall Street and the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Steve Jobs, and Amy Winehouse may have been among the year’s biggest news stories — but not on Facebook. The social networking monolith has published a list of  2011′s 40 most shared articles, and none of those topics makes the top ten. While the #1 story — The New York Times‘ satellite photos of the Japan earthquake — is hard to argue with, the rest of the list includes two pieces on the “new zodiac signs” hoax, three animal curiosities, something called “Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps,” and, of course, “You’ll freak when you see the new Facebook.” Puzzle over the ten most-shared stories of 2011 after the jump, then visit Facebook’s blog for the entire top 40.

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While we’ve previously given you a look inside some of your favorite social media companies, earlier today Laughing Squid tipped us off to an interesting development; Aakash Nihalani — a Brooklyn-based tape artist who we recently featured here — has been commissioned by Facebook to create geometric paper tape installations in its new office in New York City. The results are pretty awesome, if you’re into neon-colored eye candy; in fact, we’re hoping that the decorating team here at Flavorpill HQ see this and takes notice. Click through to get a better look.

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1. In what many UK papers are calling “the real Slumdog Millionaire,” 27-year-old Sushil Kumar, a poor government clerk from Bihar, has become the first person to win 50 million rupees (worth over $1 million), on an Indian game show. [via Guardian]

2. Earlier in the week, Keith Richards and Johnny Depp played a cover of “Key to the Highway” at the after-party for Depp’s new film, The Rum Diary. Watch a clip of their impromptu performance here.

3. Reality TV star Tonya Cooley, who most recently appeared on The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Ruins, is suing MTV, Bunim/Murray Productions, and her co-stars Kenny Santucci and Evan Starkman; according to her claims, the men sexually assaulted her with a toothbrush while she lay unconscious and the cameras remained rolling. [via TMZ]

4. Anger Management, the new sitcom based on the Adam Sandler comedy of the same name that Charlie Sheen has been shopping around since getting fired from Two and a Half Men, has finally found a home at FX. The network has ordered 10 episodes of the series, which it plans to premiere next summer. [via Vulture]

5. In case you’re as confused as we are by all of the recent changes, Gawker explains what Facebook’s new “trusted friend” category really means.

Bonus Buzz: Halloween Costumes No One Will Get But You

Here’s an uncontroversial opinion: I like Facebook. My affection for the social network is primarily one of laziness — I like the fact that I can just post stuff there instead of having to bother to, y’know, keep in touch with relatives and old friends. Saves hours of awkward telephone conversation. But it’s not just a question of practicality; there are wise and witty Facebook users out there (maybe you’re one of them!), people who’ve formulated the proper elixir of macro and micro, sharing thought-provoking links and posting charming photos and composing wry and pithy status messages.

But some people are, simply put, doing it wrong, and the situation is getting out of control. It’s time we get together and agree on a few common sense rules of the online road, some little irritants that are becoming more commonplace and threatening, as my teachers used to say, to ruin it for everyone. The soul who speaks up to voice these complaints risks being called a curmudgeon and sounding like some kind of Millennial Andy Rooney. So be it. I’ll take the hit. After the jump, a few not-unreasonable “requests” (hey, see what I did there?) for Facebook etiquette.

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