Facebook announces mysterious media event

Yesterday, Facebook invited the media to attend an event at its headquarters on Jan. 15. "Come and see what we're building," it says … but adds nothing more about what might actually be revealed.

The press has handled the announcement with its usual degree of calm and maturity — and is totally freaking out, speculating wildly, and prophesying doom.

Some samples:

• Facebook will launch a smartphone, says IBNLive.

• Facebook will shut down forever on Jan. 15, says, er, The Weekly World News.

• The event will last "hours," Mashable believes.

• It could be a laptop/tablet, something to do with Skype, or just some new software, says Tech Hunter (at least they covered the bases).

• Facebook will restrict the amount of text you can use on your cover images that same day, per Entrepreneur.

• It might be a new cyborg plug-in for your brain, says Gizmodo (or maybe a phone).

• It will be "something big" The Verge bets (even though Facebook has held meet-and-greets for the press before at which they've announced nothing more than a small open bar).

• CEO Mark Zuckerberg will "bore journalists with more details and graphs of Facebook's social graph," says Mobile N Apps.

• And here's one more overlooked coincidence: Facebook partner Microsoft is killing its long-lived Messenger service on the same day in favor of Skype, CNET notes. Could the new announcement be some sort of Facebook IM improvement?

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