Struggling website Friendster recently managed to patent a general form of online social networking. The patent, which Friendster initially filed when the site still had a respectable following three years ago, covers an online system for connecting people socially. The patent's background section is actually an interesting read, dropping references to everything from Stanley Milgram's small world theory to Match.com to general (and pretty funny) statements about dating. However, the patent itself is somewhat vague on exactly what it covers. The patent could be describing a number of networking sites currently online. It will be interesting to see if Friendster will start filing lawsuits or just focus on getting back in the game. Kent Lindstrom, the company's president, told Red Herring that they nearly forgotten about the patent until they heard the news. This could be an interesting wake-up call for sites such as Tagged and LinkedIn. I don't think Friendster's patent applies to MySpace because of the way that site is structured, but whenever avatars are involved, reality can get a bit fuzzy.
Related Stories: | Topics:Technology, internet + web, Science and Technology, Friendster Inc., Social Software and Tagging, Internet, Technology |
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Recent Comments | 5 Total
July 8, 2006 at 6:59pm by Chase
You can't patent social networks, its utilizing programming functions with ideas...you cant patent a function or a list of function because its retarded... and friendster is RETARDED
July 8, 2006 at 8:29pm by Ashish
This is totally insane - how can you patent the idea of establishing connections online (or is it something more specific)?
It's rather funny to see such patents being granted. I wonder if Friendster will change their business to one of filing lawsuits or really doing something better with their existing business.
July 9, 2006 at 1:54am by Gary Bourgeault (thealphamarketer.com)
While it may or may not be true that they forgot about it (that's hard to believe), it wouldn't surprise me to see them file lawsuits. what do they have to lose?
We've all seen stuff more stupid that that being done with lawsuits, and being won.
July 9, 2006 at 10:20pm by Joel
Friendster! Ha ha! That is so 2002. The web is funny in how things come and go. It still baffles me that MySpace is so popular, even though is really isn't that usable and is chock full of annoying ads.
That being said, I have 2 accounts, so I can't deny its reach...
July 10, 2006 at 12:30pm by Eric DeLabar
So they patented an online six-degrees of seperation. It seems pretty specific to Friendster to me, I don't know how much legal ground they'd actually have for suing other sites.