I was talking about Facebook spending big bucks in my analysis yesterday to expand its business and reach, primarily owing to the high level of advertiser trust the social network has garnered in the last year. Today VentureBeat’s reports make that concrete as the social network acquired patents of Friendster.
This acquisition includes over 18 patents of the social network which is owned by MOL Group Asia and it cost Facebook $40 Million. MOL had spent $39.5 Million for the same and in my opinion it has quite successfully swapped the entire spending in one go and it further solidifies Facebook’s stand in the social networking arena with more ways to further boost its social platform. Bagging these patents isn’t something new for Facebook as the social network has sped up its expansion phenomenally.
It will be the last nail in the coffin for Friendster, the pioneer of social networking game that dominated the arena back in 2000 before fading to MySpace first and then dwarfed by Facebook. Though the social network still remains popular in Southeast Asia, pretty much like Orkut which is popular in Brazil and India. I am sure about one thing, as Facebook grows further, it will eventually buyout every patent it possible can and improvise on these to make its platform more feature rich.
It will be interesting to watch Facebook and its competitors formulate a strategy. Oh and there is a Google social network too.
