Mark Zuckerberg Maps U.S.Patent for Facebook SOCIAL NETWORK Engine
Facebook believes honesty is the best policy–for developers–declaring “misleading notifications” verboten via a new “200 Permissions Error.”
Mark Zuckerberg continues to play his own Facebook word games though, big time.
Facebook is NOT a social network, it is a vaunted social utility, the world’s social graph, is the Facebook company line; And, Zuckerberg is sticking to it, except at the U.S. Patent Office!
The famously command and control Facebook PR team forbids Facebook applications from using the phrases “college site” or “social networking site” in relation to anything Facebook. In fact, Facebook threatens application partners with “termination of access to the Facebook Platform” if they dare to call Facebook a “social networking site.”
Facebook applications are also prohibited from mentioning the name of any social network (besides itself!) in public communications. Zuckerberg, himself, strives to “correct” supposedly erroneous media comparisons of Facebook with the number one (by far) social network, MySpace.
Facebook is NOT the same social animal as the (lowly) MySpace network, Facebook wants the world to believe. Facebook is in such a special world of its own, according to Facebook, that uttering the term “social network” in the same breath as the name Facebook is an absurdity.
If so, then Mr. Z. himself is being quite absurd, with the U.S. Patent Office.
In his United States Patent Application for “Systems and methods for social mapping,” Zuckerberg, Mark; et al, EXTOLS THE SOCIAL NETWORK!
Does Zuckerberg describe the virtues of a social utility in his patent application? NO. Does Zuckerberg lay claim to a social graph in his patent application? NO.
What DOES the anti-social networking Mark Zuckerberg proclaim in his patent application? An “invention” for the said reviled social networking.
Zuckerberg describes not how to make a “social graph” but how to build a “social network engine”:
A method for social mapping comprising receiving data about a plurality of social network members, allowing a first member of the plurality of social network members to identify a second member of the plurality of social network members to establish a relationship.
In other words, how to design, develop and implemement a big, bad SOCIAL NETWORK, a la (not?) arch rival MySpace!
Despite Zuckerberg’s “old college try” at enveloping Facebook within high falutin notions of “social utility” and declaring itself a “social graph,” Facebook is, at its core, a social network, indeed a direct competitor to “lowly” MySpace, regardless of Facebook’s public protestations.
Zuckerberg is NOT protesting Facebook’s social network birthright with the U.S. Patent Office though!
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