Friendster Patents Social Networking

If MySpace was your introduction to the hugely popular social networking scene, then it’s likely you’ve never heard of Friendster. You see, Friendster was the poster child for social networking until a few bazillion kids decided they liked the ugly UI and slow servers (to be honest Friendster was getting pretty slow too) over at MySpace. The Red Herring is reporting the patent was awarded on June 27 and covers “the basic steps involved in joining a social network: entering a personal description and relationships to other users, mapping relationships and degrees of separation, and connecting to others through these friends.” Sounds quite a bit like another social networking site I know of. Honestly, it sounds like most social networking sites doesn’t it?

I’m in the group of people that believe the patent office has gotten a wee bit out of control since internet companies started applying for, and getting, ridiculous patents. I hate to see a company that can’t perform resorting to suing other companies just because the patent office didn’t know any better. I have to be honest though, in this case i wouldn’t mind seeing Friendster mess with MySpace for a little while. Just for the heck of it.

The news of the patent comes at what seems a good time for Friendster who has recently gotten new funding, refreshed the team and moved their headquarters to try to take another run at it. I always liked Friendster a lot more than most of the social networking sites that were around at the same time and many that have popped up since. So good luck and I hope you can be successful without calling the lawyers out.