Fire Island Blog

MTV has unveiled an interactive TV service which will enable viewers to have the ultimate say in what appears on the music channel.

MTV Flux will launch a website on 1st August enabling viewers to adopt an animated figure which will represent their online presence. Users who accrue the most on-screen time will have a greater influence in deciding the channel’s running order. 

The television service is expected to launch in September.

So have MTV jumped on the Social Networking bandwagon to improve there market placement or are they after a piece of the MySpace pie? Let’s see what happens, they could be too late.

Beta sign up here: http://www.mtv.co.uk/channel/flux

Friendster has been granted a patent that covers online social networks. The company reportedly applied for the patent in 2003, long before its recent decline.

The wording of the patent is broad, vague and seems to cover the activities of a lot of similar websites out there. The patent refers to a “system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.” Whether we will see legal action from Friendster to pursue licenses from its competitors is not clear.

It seems that the patent’s main claim applies to networks that limit relationships to a certain number of degrees of separation, i.e: you can only contact a member who knows someone you know. However the patent could be made to apply to any social network, as it states that the maximum number of degrees of separation can be defined as any number.

More info at Red Herring.