Friendster is doing some spring cleaning at the end of May. The old school social networking site has announced to users that it will be deleting user information (such as photos, blogs, comments, messages, etc.) on May 31. Friendster is, …

Almost every time a company is dragged into court, the process becomes a drain on its resources and isn’t great for PR (no matter how ridiculous the claims).  It’s perhaps understandable, then, that Facebook has acquired all of Friendster’s social networking patents and patent applications for a reported $40 million.

Late yesterday, Yahoo Southeast Asia got what may be a big leg up in the social networking arena.  Yahoo Southeast Asia established a partnership with Friendster that will see the two entities doing a great deal of cross-promotion in the near future.

If fortune favors the bold, Friendster is pretty much guaranteed to experience all sorts of success.  The social network has decided to defy economic trends by opening new offices in two different countries, and is also putting its media pull to the test by placing the announcement up against inauguration coverage.

Friendster announced today that it is now supporting both Facebook and Opensocial apps. Integration with these has now become part of the Friendster Developer Program, though they’ve been supporting OpenSocial since August.

Friendster is a social network that almost never gets mentioned in the same breath as MySpace and Facebook.  Googlers living in Australia are also a little distance away from what’s seen as the mainstream.  Add these two things together, though – and toss in $20 million – and you have an intriguing development.

Anyone remember Friendster? It was an early entrant into the social networking scene. If they had done their work right they SHOULD have been a much bigger player than they are now.

Why aren’t they?

Friendster has introduced a new feature on its social networking site called "Fan Profiles" which lets bands, companies, celebrities, nonprofits and other groups promote themselves.

The world of social networking is changing, but don’t worry, it’s not permanent. It’s more of a tide than anything that reaches and recedes from all things. MySpace is changing, Facebook is catching, and Friendster is resurrected.

Matt Marshall over at Venture Beat has a post up about Friendster with a “returning from the dead” kind of vibe: Matt points out that the site — which is kind of the poster boy for early social-networking success, followed by equally rapid failure — has had what he calls a “massive” 40-per-cent jump in page views in May, to 9 billion (Facebook gets about 11 billion a month).

Users of social networks are not very brand loyal according to Parks Associates "Web 2.0 & the New Net" report.

It’s a timeless story; a friendship that had all the makings of lasting a lifetime is torn to shreds when one of the parties drops the other in favor of a richer, cooler, and more popular pal. Playing the part of the jilted friend in today’s dramatization is Yahoo, who appears to have once again been shafted by Google.

Google has been successful in many different, almost unrelated, endeavors, but one thing that it lacks is a popular social networking site. The search engine giant has, however, managed to establish an advertising deal with MySpace, and Friendster’s CEO recently indicated that Google made a similar arrangement with his company.

Bloggers know many people. Not only are bloggers on a first name basis with other bloggers who share their interests, but the blog itself has helped to create a wider network of personal contacts. Networking is just one more blog benefit. Bloggers know bloggers.

The New York Times is running an article about Friendster’s woes, and latest attempts to revive itself. Naturally, it begins with Google.

The game is over, and Friendster lost.

Do you sign into your MySpace account eight times a day? Perhaps Facebook has become your home away from home. Frankly, I hope not. But the latest news about Friendster’s patent on social networks should relax that sort of dedicated soul, and more normal users.

Being a pioneer of social networking has its drawbacks and benefits. Though Friendster’s thunder was stolen by the likes of MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo, a social networking patent may give the company a back door to lost revenue recovery.

I have been on the Web for 12 years now and the Internet for many more, going all the way back to BBSs, CompuServe and Genie.

The Journal is reporting (subscription required) that Facebook is shopping itself for as much as $2 billion, but that potential acquirers don’t agree with this valuation.

The most painful part of waking up old is that you don’t understand “cool” anymore. No, they don’t say “cool,” they say another kind of “krunked up” nonsense that will collapse society. Plucking a rudely monochromatic follicle from your scalp, the twang of its exodus isn’t quite loud enough to drown out the latest buzzword: myYearbook.com.

An online community for American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, called TroopNet, went live Monday that allows former and present soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom to post profiles and pictures, search for others based on a number of criteria, link to “buddies,” and privately message other members.