Facebook buys patents from Friendster

[httpwebwitch]

For a hefty $40M, and IMHO a brilliant investment, Facebook has acquired some patents from Friendster. Among them:

"A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks."

"Method of Inducing Content Uploads in a Social Network"

"Authorization and authentication based on an individual's social network"

"System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network"

"Compatibility scoring of users in a social network"

... 18 in all.

As Google rallies its resources for another stab at social networking, acquiring these patents is a smart defensive move for Facebook.

source [news.cnet.com]

[tedster]

Good story to watch, thanks. I very much appreciated this comment:

In July, about a month after the Friendster patents were formally acquired, Facebook announced that it had partnered with MOL to make its Credits virtual currency, increasingly a part of the social-gaming experience on Facebook, more readily available in a handful of Asian countries.

Social gaming has another big player these days, too - Disney [calcuttatube.com]. This is one hot space!