A new patent awarded to Facebook this week could have some big implications for the entire social media industry. The world’s largest social network now own the patent for the news feed.


Patent #7,669,123, first unearthed by All Facebook, credits Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and seven other current and former Facebookers as inventors and assigns the rights to the patent to Facebook, Inc.

Depending on what this patent actually covers, Facebook could use it to protect its intellectual property and force other companies with news feeds .

First though, we have to begin to understand what this patent is all about.

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Overview: The News Feed Patent

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While we’re going to take some time to really dig into this patent, its basics are simple enough. The patent awards Facebook protection for technology “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network.”
While that synopsis is very general and could definitely apply to a lot of well-known social media apps and startups, the patent’s abstract focuses less on status updates and more on the display of stories to the user.
Here is the abstract in its full form:

“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”

As we see it, this patent is focused on the technology that displays the news feed, rather than the delivery of status updates that often compose them.
However, the patent also specifically covers the auto-generation of a user’s activity and the display of that to friends. That means the news updates you get when your friends upload videos and accept friend requests is covered by Facebook’s new patent.
Facebook pioneered news feed technology when it launched its News Feed feature back in 2006. While there was a lot of controversy about it back then, it is now a standard feature on multiple social networks.

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The Potential Impact of the Patent

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Facebook and its leadership are now credited as the inventors of the news feed, or more specifically several elements of the news feed. The big question that we have to ask is this: Could Facebook force other social media companies to stop using news feeds?
Here are a few potential scenarios we’ve come up with:

1. Facebook sues companies such as MySpace, Twitter and Google to take down their news feed features. It succeeds, pushing Facebook way ahead in the game.
2. Facebook sues companies in defense of its patent. It wins a few and strike out on a few.
3. Facebook sues companies, but the courts don’t side with Facebook because their technologies are significantly different from Facebook’s news feed technology that it doesn’t infringe on the patent.
4. Facebook controls the patent, but doesn’t exercise its right to defend its invention.

Let’s be clear: We don’t know what Facebook wants to do with its patent, and we are not patent lawyers with years of experience in this space. With that said, we do believe this patent could become very significant, very quickly. It covers a lot of technologies that are seemingly in use almost everywhere.
If Facebook can make news feed a Facebook-only feature, then it drains the usefulness of countless social networks while boosting its own. However, the process of exercising that patent would get very ugly, and we’re not sure if Facebook has a lot of incentive to jump into the snake pit and incur that type of PR damage.
We’re going to take some more time to research this patent and consult with experts to see what impact this thing could have. In the meantime, let us know what you think about this new development in the comments.
Update: Facebook sent us the following statement:

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site. We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.”

Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing gigs and connecting with your customers.


Here are 32 ways to use Facebook in your business.

Manage Your Profile

1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
2. Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
3. Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
4. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile. (Although you should be careful before integrating your Twitter feed into your Faceboook profile, as a stream of tweets can seem overwhelming to your contacts.)
5. Keep any personal parts of your profile private through Settings.
6. Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
7. Post a professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
8. Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
9. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.
Connect and share with others
10. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.
11. Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
12. Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with ABC Company on web site redesign.”
13. Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
14. Combine Facebook with other social media tools like Twitter. For example, when someone asks question on Twitter, you can respond in detail in a blog post and link to it from Facebook.
15. Before traveling, check contacts locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
16. Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
17. Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
18. Use Find Friends for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
19. Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friends lists.
20. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
21. Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
22. Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
23. Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.
24. Suggest Friends to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
25. Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
26. Read up on Facebook Beacon to see if it might be useful for you.
Use Network, Group and Fan Pages
27. Start a group or fan page for product, brand or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.
28. Add basic information to the group or fan page such as links to company site, newsletter subscription information and newsletter archives.
29. Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
30. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.
31. Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.
32. Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.