Facebook raises $1.5 billion in investments so far

In the company's most revealing disclosure of its financial plans to date, Facebook Inc. said Friday that it has raised $1.5 billion in investments and planned to start reporting its finances publicly by April 2012.

The Palo Alto social networking powerhouse remains private, but a news release issued 15 minutes after the close of the stock markets signals that Facebook is moving closer to an initial public offering.

Facebook officials had previously remained mum on published reports that surfaced as the new year dawned about a deal that would bring a $450 million investment from New York's Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and an additional $50 million from Digital Sky Technologies Inc. of Russia.

But the news release was Facebook's first public statement on those reports, and it confirmed the investments were based on a company valuation of $50 billion.

Facebook also said it had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, which planned to raise that money by selling shares of a special Facebook fund to select clients.

Tweet in Korean: Twitter Inc. has just added Korean, the seventh language for the San Francisco microblogging service. Twitter is already huge in Japan, and South Korea could also be an important market. About 70 percent of Twitter users are outside of the United States.

Twitter has also updated the popular Korean versions of its Android and iPhone apps. It is now available in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Korean.

Net users involved: Internet users are actively involved in their community and in groups, with many of them using tools such as Facebook and Twitter to mobilize, a survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project said.

The report found that 80 percent of Internet users participate in groups, whether it be spiritual groups or professional ones. Social media users are even more active, with 82 percent of social-network users and 85 percent of Twitter users getting together with others in an organization.

The Internet has also become a tool for members to communicate with one another, raise awareness and drum up support for their cause, raise money and recruit new members.

The report found, for instance, that 62 percent of all Americans believe that the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to draw attention to an issue. About half said that the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to raise money.

YouTube film: One of the films being shown at the Sundance Film Festival is a documentary culled from YouTube footage.

"Life in a Day" was directed by Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") and produced by Ridley Scott.

Last year, YouTube invited would-be filmmakers to record their day on July 24, 2010. It received more than 80,000 submissions - about 4,500 hours of footage - which Macdonald and a team of editors winnowed to 1,125 clips and turned into "Life in a Day." The filmmakers whose footage were chosen were given co-director credits.

The 90-minute documentary will be simultaneously shown at the film festival and online Thursday at 5 p.m.

This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle