Here Are All The Rumors About What Facebook Will Announce At Its Mysterious Jan. 15 Event

FacebookThe invite.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?