We all know that right now Facebook is the big heavy in the social networking world. What it hasn’t created on its own, it has copied from its competitors. In keeping with that idea it turns out that Facebook has added to its vault of patents the old fashioned way – it bought them.

Owen Thomas over at VentureBeat just let us know that as of June 7 the following patents were transferred to Facebook from the social network originator, Friendster.

• System and method for managing an online social network
• Feeding updates to landing pages of users of an online social network from external sources
• System, method and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.

So it seems that if you can’t out innovate any potential competitors the fear of lawsuits is another way to keep them from getting to uppity I guess.

If Facebook can’t innovate just buy the patents is a post from: The Inquisitr

This move makes Friendster the first social network to become friends with Google’s OpenSocial and Facebook.

“Friendster’s support of both the Facebook and OpenSocial platforms is a big win for business and individual developers, as well as for Friendster users,” said David Jones, vice president of global marketing for Friendster. “For the developers that have invested resources in developing and launching a Facebook app, Friendster has now made it very easy for them to ‘port’ these applications to Friendster, enabling them to tap into Friendster’s 80 million users. For Web 2.0 companies that have developed apps using Facebook and OpenSocial APIs, they now have the flexibility to choose between approaches when launching applications on Friendster.”

Friendster Now Friends With Facebook is a post from: The Inquisitr

Friendster also announced the appointment of Richard Kimber, formerly the regional managing director of Google at South Asia where he dramatically increased the search engine’s revenue in the Asia Pacific region.

“Utilizing the Internet to connect to your friends is one of its greatest benefits, and is changing the way relationships work globally. With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia,” Kimber said.

Friendster boasts of having 55 million registered users and 33 million monthly unique visitors from Asia alone, with the remaining 20 million from all over the globe.

Impressive numbers but they should try setting a stronghold in the US as well.

Friendster is (Still) Alive with $20 Million and New CEO is a post from: The Inquisitr