Those impetuous scamps at the US Patent Office have done it again, awarding Friendster a patent on social networking methods. From a piece on Beta News:
“Called ‘A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks,’ the patent seems to give the site the rights to methods used to describe degrees of separation between users.
“According to Friendster, the patent covers methods to calculate and display this separation, as well as providing a way for the user to act upon it. It claims that the invention spurred the uptick now occurring in the social networking industry.”
Does this make “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” prior art?