Kanye West previewed a big chunk of his upcoming fifth album at Facebook’s corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. last night. He didn’t play finished tracks from an iPod, or perform any typical concert. The suited rapper simply climbed on a table and spit verses from four new tunes, a cappella, for what looks like a fluorescently lit conference room full of employees. It’s the biggest glimpse we’ve gotten yet of West’s highly anticipated disc, for which his label has yet to announce a confirmed title or release date. Crisp footage of West’s unconventional performance made it to YouTube lickety-split, of course. So what can we glean from his latest lyrics? Check them out after the jump (clips via Rap Radar, some NSFW language) and see. West opened with a song of unknown title. After being interrupted by a ringing phone — seriously, Facebook employees, Kanye West is giving you an exclusive private performance and you’re not on vibrate? — he launches into what he describes as “a fun rap.” “Kill the hypocrisy/This is an aristocracy,” West rhymes.

After it was spotted, Yeti-like, by a few eagle-eyed observers this spring, Facebook has officially launched its Facebook Questions product in a limited beta test--and it may have some big implications for the Web. "Millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day. What new music should I listen to? Where's the best sushi place in town? How do I learn to play the piano?" a Facebook blog post announcing the new feature explained. "With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics." About 1 percent of Facebook users will have early beta access to Facebook Questions, and it will be gradually rolled out to the rest of Facebook's 500-million-plus active users after that. Any Facebook user can ask a question from a new "question dashboard," the profile "publisher" that lets members update their statuses and add photos, or through the search box. They can tag their questions with category keywords, too, and those tags will eventually be used to fill up an aggregate "questions" tab on relevant Community Pages on Facebook.

Facebook Inc. officially took the wraps off of its new question-and-answer feature Wednesday. Millions of people already ask their friends questions on the site each day. This way users can get “a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics,” Black Ross, a director of product management at Facebook, wrote in a company blog post. The feature called Facebook Questions gives users a way to tap into the “collective knowledge” of more than 500 million people, Ross said. The questions, and the answers, will be public so anyone on the Internet can see them. The only way to ask a question privately is by posing it as a status update on your profile. That openness is reminiscent of other services that let people ask and answer questions. As we wrote earlier this week, major Internet players and start-ups are experimenting with how to quickly route people to the answers they want, some by connecting them with people with specific expertise or knowledge. Think of the effort as a way to give everyone their own personal search engine.