In a moment as important to social networking as Amazon’s one-click patent was for e-commerce, Facebook gets a patent on the news feed. But many questions remain, especially about prior art and what is a “news feed.”
More people are using social networks, but different ones at different ages, but mostly by choice. Will professional usage of social networks ever be worthwhile enough to drive adoption?
The NIH spends $12.2 million funding a social network for scientists. Is this any more likely to succeed than all the other recent failures?
We need to focus less on social media and more on social function, lest we find ourselves chasing an elusive, fickle user around the Internet.