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so friendster was just awarded patent no 2: number 7,117,254 (on the
us pto site you can do a quick search with the number) entitled,
"Method of inducing content uploads in a social network"...and they
wrote to gigaom to tell him more (link to post is
http://gigaom.com/2006/10/18/friendster-gets-patent-2/)
salient excerpt, "Friendster1 just wrote in to tell us it has been
granted a second social networking patent2. The patent basically
covers uploading a photo and associating it with someone you are
connected to on an online social network. Friendster also claims it
should extend to "videos, audio, comments, and any other content
type, supported in public or private forums, within a social network."
does this seem like a practical approach to a patent - or does the us
pto simply not understand the dynamics of networks and relationships
might develop or be manipulated within a site like friendster, myspace, etc..?
per the patent, note the use of degrees as key element of definition,
"A method of inducing content uploads in an online network includes
the steps of storing content relating to a first member of the
network that is submitted by a second member of the network,
receiving approval of the content from the first member, and
associating the content with the first member. The uploaded content
may comprise an image file containing a photo of the first member and
a caption associated with the photo image. The second user uploads
the content relating to the first member using a GUI. This GUI is
made available to the second user through a hyperlink that appears
when a profile page of the first member is accessed if the degree of
separation between the first member and the second member is less
than or equal to a maximum degree of separation set by the first
user. On the other hand, the hyperlink to this GUI will not appear
when the profile page of the first member is accessed by the second
member if the degree of separation between the first member and the
second member is greater than the maximum degree of separation set by
the first user. The default setting for this maximum degree of
separation is one."
thoughts? reactions?
-dave
David Carpe
Principal and Founder, Clew, LLC (http://www.clew.us)
E: [log in to unmask]
W: 781.674.2539
M: 781.883.5487
Skype: dcarpe
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