Tagged with " social networking sites"

Friendster nets another social networking patent

Dec 10, 2008 by     9 Comments    Posted under: News, Social Media, Technology

Some might argue that Friendster is the one that started it all, and if you look at the historical data, they might just be right.  Friendster was the first social networking platform, as we know them today, to really gain any traction and start connecting users.

Due to a series of mistakes and misplays, Friendster quickly found itself in a very distant backseat to then up and comers MySpace and Facebook.  However, don’t write Friendster off quite yet, as they’ve somehow managed a popularity campaign in Asia of all places.  However, Asia isn’t the only place seeing a lot of Friendster these days; so is the U.S. Patent Office.  Friendster has recently received their fourth patent, with another twelve plus applications currently in the works.

Their most recent patent concerns the “compatibility scoring of users in a social network”.  To put that in digestible English: a method for analyzing and determining just how similar social network users are to each other.

Let’s look at that again.

Friendster has been granted a patent on a ‘method’ used to judge the similarity of different users across a social network.  In other words, one of the main mechanisms that’s fundamental to finding and suggesting friends on a social network – Friendster now has a patent on it.  Whoa.

San Francisco based Friendster was granted these patents based on the fact that it was the first social networking site to gain traction in what is a now crowded marketplace.  A bit like the great land grab of the late 19th century (think Tom Cruise and Nichol Kidman – Far and Away), Friendster was first on the spot, and offered a number of features that are now standard operating equipment on social networking sites.  Friendster also currently holds patents on: how people are connected on a social network, the process of friends encouraging each other to upload content, and ways for users to manage social-network friendships.

So what does it all mean?  Sure they’ve technically got the patents, and technically all other social networking sites are in direct violation of these patents be using these technology without forking over a dime for it.  Theoretically, Friendster could step into a court of law and demand that MySpace and Facebook cough up a buck or two every time a user adds a friend.

So far, Friendster hasn’t bothered to flex the patent muscle, but they’re very well within their rights to do so.  Obviously, Friendster isn’t commenting about their future legal strategy.

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Boomers going digital

Sep 12, 2008 by     6 Comments    Posted under: Technology

According to a recent report by the NPD Group, baby boomers are a key demographic segment for digital products and marketing.  The study, “Entertainment Trends in America” reveiled that Baby Boomers who stream video are 15% more likely to buy a CD, DVD, or movie tickets (I can only guess that they’ve not yet mastered the art of the torrent).

While once only popular with youth and teen segments, baby boomers have come of (the digital) age, and are enjoying more and more online participation.  Recent consumer surveys found that 61 percent of baby boomer Internet users (aged 44-61) had visited streaming or downloadable video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.), and 41 percent had visited social networks (linked-in, Facebook, and MySpace).

“There’s an ongoing misperception that certain Web activities are the exclusive domain of young people,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. “That misperception could cost the entertainment industry, in terms of lost opportunities to target valuable consumers.”

The study also went on to find that more than half of all Web users surveyed (57 percent) visited social networking sites within the past three months.  ‘Young’ internet users (13-34 year olds) are far more likely to visit social networks and more often, but baby boomers that visited a social networking site did so on average 8 times over the previous three months (slightly less than once a week on average).

Getting down to the dollars and cents, NPW found that boomers who regularly use social networking or streaming video sites were more likely to buy CDs, DVDs, and/or movie tickets.

“As more consumers of all ages spend more time online, there’s potentially going to be less time for them to consume entertainment content in traditional ways,” Crupnick said. “These findings underscore the growing need for entertainment companies to promote and distribute digital entertainment content online, in order to keep pace with the changing needs and desires of consumers of all ages.”

It may come as no surprise that boomers have already mastered the art of email and web surfing, as the results were nearly universal across all age groups.  Online shopping came in with nearly similar results with 8 out of 10 users making an online purchase sometime during the past three months.  Teens and young adults reported a slightly lower score however, possibly due to lack of plastic (credit cards).

The survey was done by the NPD Group of Port Jefferson, NY, and included over 11,000 consumers, with results balanced to reflect the internet –connected US population of age 13 or older.

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