Meet The Creators Of Facebook's Controversial News Feed

Mark Zuckerberg isn't a college phenomenon anymore. He's almost 30!In September 2006, when Facebook launched News Feed, a personalized stream of updates presenting a snapshot of friends' activity, it was greeted with instant backlash.

Almost one out of every ten Facebook users—then numbering 8 million, mostly college students, as this was before the site had opened up to everyone—signed a petition calling for it to be axed.

On Thursday, Facebook is revealing another revamp of News Feed—which will likely stir more controversy about exactly how Facebook picks stories (and advertisements).

Much like the mystery that swirls around how Google ranks websites in its search, there's considerable speculation and a lot of hogwash about how the News Feed algorithm works.

There's no mystery about one thing, though—who created it.

On a patent filed August 11, 2006—weeks before News Feed would launch—Facebook filed for a patent on "communicating a newsfeed of media content based on a member's interactions in a social network environment."

The inventors: "Zuckerberg et al."