Friendster Will Lose Friends with New Patents

Friendster, a social networking web site founded in 2002, was one of the early pioneers of social networking on the web, but it lost some momentum when newer sites with more facile features appeared on the market.

But Friendster is back with a vengeance. I caught up with Kent Lindstrom, now president of Friendster, at CES 2007; he outlined a three-pronged approach to re-invigorating the former giant.

Patent Wars:

The biggest one-two punch will come from two patents granted to Friendster this past year. These patents could spell trouble for other social-networking sites. Patent Number 7,069,308 is titled, "A System, Method, and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships Within Social Networks." Basically, it's a patent on the way that social relationships are defined, calculated, and acted upon. The second patent, granted this fall, covers how content about friends gets uploaded into a social network. (U.S. Patent No. 7,117,254).

With two patents in the can, Friendster can move to close down the competition or it can demand a royalty on its patents. Lindstrom says he's still evaluating the options, but you can only imagine that the MySpaces and Facebooks of the world would not be too happy paying a royalty to another site. If Friendster tries to enforce this seemingly broad patent it seems that the other social-network sites could challenge.

Targeting an Older Crowd:

In addition to the patents, Friendster is repositioning itself as the social network for young adults. It seeks to attract a grown-up, post-college crowd rather than trying to compete for MySpace's teenage audience or Facebook's college-age users. Lindstrom says that adults in their 20s and 30s are the biggest users of the site today.

Recognizing the Wide, Wide World:

Finally, Lindstrom has a bone to pick with the U.S.-centric vision of a social network. If you look at worldwide users, he says, sites such as Orkut way outsize MySpace in terms of members. Friendster's growth may have slowed in this country, but there's a big, wide world out there.

I visited Friendster today and dusted off my old profile. The site is faster and has more features than the last time I used it, but neither patents nor a marketing message is likely to impress consumers. To retake its rightful place in the top 10 social networks Friendster is going to have to convince friends that it's not a blast from the past.