Apparently, . Zuckerberg is apparently considered to be on leave from Harvard, which he left in 2004 to focus on Facebook, according to Harvard University President Drew Faust.

Faust recently joked about this with the company’s interns and staff when he said, “When I talked to Mark in January he said he still has his Harvard e-mail, so he is still on leave.” Faust also explained in the Harvard Gazette website that the University encourages international travel and gap years. Both of these have become popular options for undergraduate students. He also explained that the door remains open for students who want to return to Harvard and finish their degrees, which includes Mark Zuckerberg.

Faust also said on the subject, “I really believe universities should not have fixed ideas about what students should do or where they should go. Instead we should give them the intellectual and other resources of advice and support and information that enable them to make the choices that are best for them and best for the world in which they are going to live.” According to Faust, taking time off to start a company or travel no longer carries the stigma it once did for students.

Faust then went on to explain how Facebook and Harvard are similar in a way. “In a sense, Harvard and Facebook both serve as filters of information,” Faust said. “You filter information through social graphs. We try to teach people to be interpreters and critical evaluators of information, to identify how to use information.”

It seems that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and creator, has suddenly gone coy on Google plus, which is Google’s latest social network and challenge to Facebook. Recently, Zuckerberg, who is of course the founder of the current number one social networking site, hit headlines for being the most followed person on Google Plus.

Due to recent reports, Zuckerberg has now changed his privacy settings so that they will no longer display how many people are following him or how many people he has placed in Circles on the new social networking site. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Circles are the groups of friends on Google Plus.

It is also interesting that other high-profile corporate honchos have chosen to go private now on Google plus. For example, Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, reportedly have also hit the privacy button, not allowing people to see how many people are following them.

The trio have since then fallen off of a ranking of the most 100 popular people on Google Plus, naturally. This unofficial top 100 users list is compiled by an Amsterdam-based team of programmers on a site called Google Plus statistics. This is also the same group that tracks user popularity on Twitter through their Twitter counter.

It will be interesting to see how this affects other high-profile people’s choices to stay public or go private on Google Plus. At this early of a stage, it is unclear if many celebrities are going to take to Google Plus the way they have seemingly taken to Twitter.

Many Google plus users are now opting to keep their information private, though, so this could just be a growing trend on Google Plus. The social network is so new that no one really knows at this point.

Everyone in the media from The Daily Mail to Forbes made a big deal about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator and CEO, joining Google+. Zuckerberg created a Google+ profile including Facebook CTO, Bret Taylor as well as Dustin Moskovitz (possibly Zuckerberg’s friend from Harvard who helped him create Facebook) among the people in his Google Circles.

Many people did not believe the real Mark Zuckerberg would actually create an account on Google+, which has the potential to become a real rival to Facebook. When the Mark Zuckerberg profile first appeared, many people thought it was a fake profile. According to tech blogger, Robert Scoble, Zuckerberg is genuinely surprised at this. Zuckerberg sent Scoble a text saying, “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?”

This attitude is perhaps created by the previous behavior of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Page and Brin apparently have avoided joining Facebook as themselves, though there are rumors that they have interacted on the site under pseudonyms. It’s also rumored that Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman, can be found on Facebook.

Other website founders, like Tom of Myspace, have previously been quite involved in rival websites and set the precedent that enjoying competitive services is not a big deal. Should people be shocked that Zuckerberg would want to check out his potential competition? Or perhaps Google+ is reaching out to a niche that Facebook has neglected. Zuckerberg is already on Twitter after all, but many could argue that Twitter has a different function than Facebook and thus is not in competition with the huge website.

I think as a CEO of one of the biggest social media websites in the world, it is perfectly natural that Zuckerberg should want to take part in and check out the new Google+ to see how it works and how consumers enjoy the service. What do you think?

Update: Mark Zuckerberg is really on facebook. Check it out.

While millions of people are scrambling around trying to get a Google+ invitation, google plus has received the most unexpected visit from Mark Zuckerberg- the facebook founder. A mysterious profile has appeared on Google+ and many predict that it’s none other than Mark Zuckerberg. More than 15,000 people have added this profile to their cirlcles.

This supposed Mark Zuckerberg profile has just 40 people in its circles with “Dustin Moskovitz” being one among them. Many believe that this could be his friend in Harvard who helped Zuckerberg develop facebook . Google plus doesn’t verify accounts and there’s no way one can tell which are legitimate. The profile’s introduction reads “I make things” with Palo Alto, CA listed as his location. With many believing that Google+ is destined to take facebook down could this profile really belong to Mark Zuckerberg trying to take a look at Google plus.

Mark Zuckerberg is following 16 people with most of them being the facebook developers and this makes it pretty hard for one to term this profile as fake . Do you think that the profile really belongs to Mark Zuckerberg?