from WSJ.com
Friendster may sue rivals like MySpace and Facebook for patent infringement, according to today's WSJ. It was awarded a patent last month for relationship-based online searching and is considering how to enforce its rights relating to this and other patents, including one upcoming that involves technology that lets user upload content to another user's page. Friendster, once the leader in social networking — in fact the pioneer in that space — has less than a million users, while at the other end of the spectrum is MySpace with a whopping 45.8 million.
The WSJ notes that Friendster could conceivably use the patents either to block its rivals completely, or could merely charge a licensing fee that could allow it to claim a piece of their fast-growing pie. Last year Friendster users were outraged by a feature that let other users see when you'd viewed their profile, or at least it outraged my friend Veronica.
