elgato
Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 17239
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 8:37 pm Post subject: Facebook killer? Amazon patents social network |
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You better stop what you're doing right there, Mark Zuckerberg: Somebody else has patented the "social network."
The United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday awarded a patent to Amazon for a "social networking system" that would seem to accomplish the exact same tasks already performed by the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.
Amazon now holds the patent for "A networked computer system [that] provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users."
Groundbreaking, isn't it? Amazon's patented system - which, of course, doesn't seem to be publicly available - does all the major things Facebook is known for.
"Users can identify other users based on their affiliations with particular schools or other organizations," according to the patent, and the system "provides a mechanism for a user to selectively establish contact relationships or connections with other users, and to grant permissions for such other users to view personal information of the user."
more.. link to news article |
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