His only tweet so far:

Not all that compelling, but hopefully they’ll get better.

Narendra is currently CEO and co-founder of SumZero, a financial utility for buy-side investors.

In the film, he was portrayed by Max Minhella.

The story of these three guys, ConnectU and the founding of Facebook, of course, was turned into a well-known story in the mainstream with the critically acclaimed David Fincher film The Social Network, based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires.

A couple of not-relevant-but-still-interesting-pieces-of-information: the brothers will soon row for Oxford University in the classic Boat Race against Cambridge, and the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones caught up with them in Christ Church Hall.

Then here’s the pertinent quote: with regards to Facebook, Cameron told Cellan-Jones, "I think it is safe to say the chapter is not closed on the matter."

Tyler also added, "It’s our duty to stand for principles.  We’re willing to wait around and make sure that’s what right has been made right."

So Mark Zuckerberg and his team of lawyers may want to prepare for Round Whatever of this long-running dispute.  The matter of who founded Facebook is something that will have to be decided before the company goes public, since shareholders won’t want new claimants popping up all the time, and even if that’s not an immediate concern, the implication that Zuckerberg stole code doesn’t amount to good publicity.

Tech Journal South is putting it on the event, and they’ve attracted quite the list of speakers, including the founders of ConnectU (the guys that sued Facebook, saying it was their idea), people from Microsoft, Lenovo, Citrix, Lulu, Weblogs, Lending Tree, Batanga and more.

Some social media types are speaking, including our friend Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim. I’ll be moderating the panel on “Marketing in a 2.0. World,” but heck I’m really just excited to be going to the event.  Seems like a really solid one. In fact, when I saw the agenda, I knew that Ignite Social Media had to become a platinum sponsor.

Head over to Internet Summit 08 to learn more, or click here to register.   If you register before October 10th, you’ll save $100 off the walk-up fee.

Hope to see you there.  If you’re interested, here’s the complete list of speakers so far:
– Bob Young – Founder & CEO, Lulu.com; Co-founder, Red Hat
– Divya Narendra, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss – Founders ofConnectU.com, the idea behind Facebook
– David Churbuck – VP of Global Web Marketing, Lenovo
– Cliff Reeves – Emerging Business Team, Microsoft
– Andy Beal – Founder, Trackur/Internet Marketing Pilgrim Blog
– Brad Hill – Director, Weblogs – A division of AOL
– Jordan Glogau – Search Marketing Director, 1-800-Flowers.com
– Mark Rostick – Managing Director, Intel Capital
– Scot Wingo – President & CEO, ChannelAdvisor
– Reggie Bradford – Founder & CEO, Vitrue
– Jud Bowman – President & CEO, PocketGear
– Stephen Wiehe – President and CEO, SciQuest
– Brian Handly – Sr VP, Atlas/Microsoft Advertising
– Michael Cristinziano – VP Strategic Development, Citrix Systems
– Duke Chung – CEO & President, Parature
– Ryan Allis – CEO & Co-founder, iContact
– Jason Caplain – General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures
– Ben Weinberger – CEO, Digitalsmiths Corporation
– Igor Jablokov – CEO & Co-founder, Yap
– Troy McConnell – President & COO, Batanga
– Joan Siefert Rose – President, Council for EntrepreneurialDevelopment
– Greg Foster – Noro-Moseley Partners
– Lee Prevost – President & Founder, SchoolDude.com
– Travis Janovich – CEO, eTix
– Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. – President and CEO, RushmoreDrive
– Mike Doernberg – CEO, Reverb Nation
– Jason Trevisan – Polaris Ventures
– Scott W. Devitt – Managing Director, Stifel Nicolaus
– Brooks Bell – President, Brooks Bell Interactive
– Jim Tobin – President, Ignite Social Media
– Keith Moore – VP and General Manager, LendingTree

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A Bloomberg article states, "Under the deal, stemming from ConnectU’s 2004 allegations that Facebook stole its computer code, control of ConnectU will be transferred to Facebook.  ConnectU’s founders will get stock in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook and ‘millions’ of dollars in cash, according to court papers."

It will admittedly be odd for ConnectU’s lawyers to work against a company that has gained ownership of their employer.  Yet the shifting value of the U.S. dollar and stock market make the transfer into a "sooner the better" situation, as seen by the judge, so that the exchange remains fair.

Social media isn’t known for being stable, either, and Facebook’s employees are even now supposed to be selling some of their stock options at discounted prices.

Meanwhile, two of the three ConnectU founders are performing decently as Summer Games rowers, according to Vasanth Sridharan.

Now four years later Facebook is celebrating their four year anniversary, and that the lawsuit against them is finally settled – in Facebook’s favor. Facebook asked that the case be dismissed, for lack of evidence, and that happened. ConnectU then filed another lawsuit against Facebook in March, which is now closed.

Yesterday Judge James Ware of Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., stood behind a February settlement between the companies. Also named were Zuckerberg’s Harvard classmates, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.

Facebook now has upwards of 39 million members and expanded to go beyond college students. ConnectU is said to have 15,000 members at 200 schools.

There is plenty of drama behind the suit and the story of Facebook’s beginnings. Zuckerberg’s writings say that he was drowning his sorrows in his dorm room after he got dumped. He may have lost in love, but he came up with a plan. He’d hack into Harvard’s student directory, download photographs of students, and post them online. He said the pictures were awful and compared them to farm animals. He decided to let people rate which was better – the people or the animals. That alone is funny.

As part of the suit, ConnectU questioned Facebook’s valuation of $15 billion and if the original settlement was valid. They noted that the valuation in the press release about Microsoft’s investment in Facebook, and the valuation given by Facebook’s board of directors didn’t match.

Then they said the father of the twins (and ConnectU shareholder) named in the suit, Howard Winklevoss, didn’t sign the original settlement, making it invalid. That didn’t work.

Facebook countered saying ConnectU signed the settlement and knew exactly what they were doing, saying: “ConnectU’s founders were represented by six lawyers and a professor at Wharton Business School when they signed the settlement agreement. The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made, and we are gratified that the court rejected their false allegations of fraud.”

Rolling Stone wrote a 5-page article on the battle over Facebook. From that article, one of my favorite lines from Zuckerberg, (remember this is coming from the mind of a teenage coder who decided to study psychology) is this insight:

“People are more voyeuristic than what I would have thought.”

His angst, programming skills, and that insight have turned a very quick success. And it appears that Zuckerberg is vindicated.

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Caveat emptor, as the saying goes. The owners of ConnectU, who have long claimed their hiring of Zuckerberg as programmer led to him developing Facebook on their time, won’t get a second chance to enrich their existing settlement with the social networking company.

Facebook released a statement about the court’s decision, where the presiding judge previously chided Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss over buyer’s remorse:

“We are happy that Judge Ware enforced the agreement settling our dispute with the ConnectU founders. ConnectU’s founders were represented by six lawyers and a professor at Wharton Business School when they signed the Settlement Agreement. The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made, and we are gratified that the Court rejected their false allegations of fraud. Their challenge was simply a case of ‘buyers remorse,’ as described by the Boston Court earlier this month.”

“We were disappointed that we had to litigate the settlement, as we believed we were caught in the middle of a fee dispute between ConnectU’s founders and its former counsel. Nevertheless, we can now consider this chapter closed and wish the Winklevoss brothers the best of luck in their future endeavors.”

All that was missing was a hearty “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” from Facebook.

ConnectU founders had attempted to reopen the lawsuit after they said they found new evidence to support their case that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had stolen source code and ideas from them while they all were attending Harvard.

Judge James Ware rejected ConnectU’s claim, issuing his ruling two days after a hearing Monday that he ordered closed to both the public and the press. "The court finds that the agreement is enforceable and orders its enforcement," the order said.

The ruling states both companies must appear in court on July 2 "to show cause why a judgment should not be entered ordering the parties to take the actions required of them in the Settlement Agreement."

Ware rejected ConnectU’s allegations that Facebook had committed securities fraud in reaching the settlement. ConnectU claimed Facebook did not properly disclose a value of common stock that had been made to the company’s board. Ware ruled that ConnectU failed to prove that Facebook had misrepresented the value of the stock.

Ware agreed with a Boston court’s ruling that said ConnectU’s attempt to back out of the settlement was "buyer’s remorse."

A Facebook spokesperson sent WebProNews a copy of the ruling along with a statement from the company.

"We are happy that Judge Ware enforced the agreement settling our dispute with the ConnectU founders.  ConnectU’s founders were represented by six lawyers and a professor at Wharton Business School when they signed the Settlement Agreement.  The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made, and we are gratified that the Court rejected their false allegations of fraud."
 

 

So far, the companies’ relationship has elicited quite a bit of eye rolling.  ConnectU’s founders claimed Mark Zuckerberg more or less stole the idea for Facebook from them.  In April, they all reached a settlement (the amount of which wasn’t disclosed).  Then, earlier this month, the ConnectU side came back with more evidence.

Until Judge Ware either opens up his courtroom or announces his ruling, this seems to be the end of the story.  Courtroom leaks aren’t too common and sometimes wind up being quite inaccurate.

Ware‘s professional history seems to indicate he’s familiar with tech issues, at least.  Ware is the judge who, as a post on the Official Google Blog puts it, "decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice."  He’s also had encounters with Microsoft and RealNetworks.

And Declan McCullagh reports, "U.S. District Judge James Ware plans to issue a ruling before too much time has elapsed, attorneys involved in the matter said . . ."

When ConnectU’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, brought Mark Zuckerberg on to code their site at Harvard, they didn’t expect Zuckerberg to emerge from the project with a rival site. Claims by ConnectU of infringement by Zuckerberg appeared to end in February when they agreed to a settlement.

However, Bloomberg said ConnectU’s computer forensic investigator recently discovered new evidence in the form of old instant messages that allegedly back the claim against Facebook.

ConnectU now wants out of the settlement, as their lawyer claimed enforcement of those terms will lead to a new case and accusations of fraud against Facebook. The presiding judge failed to be impressed by this latest revelation.

“The parties chose to do what they did based on imperfect knowledge of what the outcome of the case might be,” Bloomberg cited U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock as saying. “You knew at the time you entered into the agreement it wasn’t complete.”

There appears to be some question as to whether or not ConnectU’s investigator should have brought the instant messages to the company’s attention. He reportedly was not allowed to disclose anything other than code he reviewed on Facebook’s computers.

Silicon Alley Insider prodded the attorney for ConnectU on the contents of the instant messages discovered in the investigation. Lawyer John Hornick said ConnectU didn’t have the IMs in question.

They probably should have tried to reach D. Michael Underhill instead of Hornick. CNET said ConnectU hired Underhill to represent them in the still-ongoing dispute with Facebook.

But that’s not how our wonderful legal system works in the United States. The suit was once again opened after a circuit court judge granted ConnectU the right to file an appeal last Thursday. CNET reports:

“We hold that the jurisdictional claim in the amended complaint warrants full consideration and constitutes a viable hook on which federal jurisdiction can be hung,” the court document read. “Because this holding is at odds with the conclusions reached by the court below, we reverse the order of dismissal and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Today, the New York Times Bits blog reported that Facebook and ConnectU reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount. Additionally, “the person briefed on the status of the negotiations said motions to dismiss the cases were expected to be filed ‘within weeks.’”

Despite the fact that the case has essentially been reopened, it’s not entirely clear why Facebook would choose to make a deal now, after three and a half years of the lawsuit. Why do you think Facebook chose to do this now?

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