The International Herald Tribune reported on Thursday that Facebook attempted to acquire a look-alike German social network before finally suing it in a federal court last month.
StudiVZ, a German site geared toward college students, is 10 times the size of Facebook's user base in Germany. It also looks just like Facebook, with a different color scheme, which is what ticked off the site's legal team. The court complaint, which called StudiVZ "a knockoff," says "a year and a half after the debut of Facebook's Web site, (it) was built by copying the look, feel, and features of Facebook.com."
The complaint continued: "Facebook is concerned that, because StudiVZ looks like Facebook, and incorporates similar features and functionality to Facebook, users will incorrectly believe that StudiVZ is associated with Facebook."
But according to sources who spoke to the IHT, Facebook first tried to acquire StudiVZ, which would have not only quelled the problem but also bought Facebook some major inroads in the German market. Parent company Georg von Holtzbrinck, however, wasn't satisfied with what Facebook was willing to pay. The German publishing company had acquired StudiVZ for the equivalent of $134 million early in 2007 and reportedly wanted significantly more than that in a hypothetical sale to Facebook.
Intellectual-property lawsuits are nothing unfamiliar at Facebook, which was sued years ago by the creators of onetime rival ConnectU, when they alleged that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had swiped their code and business plan. Facebook settled the lawsuit by effectively acquiring ConnectU for a combination of cash and stock.
But in this case, Facebook is the one crying foul. The IHT noted that because of international borders, it's unclear where this case will be tried. But it's more clear that this case has some foundation: StudiVZ's similarities to Facebook go right on down to the "poke." On the German site, that's called "gruscheln."
Social networks like Facebook and MySpace have reputations as time-sucking procrastination tools, but a new study from the University of Minnesota says au contraire.
Social networks build beneficial technological, creative, and communication skills, the study says, leading the researchers to actually describe social networks with the adjective "educational." Who knew?
"What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today," Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher from the school's College of Education and Human Development, said in a release Friday.
Data from the study came from teenagers ages 16 to 18 in about a dozen urban high schools in the Midwest.
"Students are developing a positive attitude towards using technology systems, editing and customizing content and thinking about online design and layout," Greenhow continued. "They're also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology."
As an added bonus, social networks may be part of the reason that low-income students are largely just as technologically proficient as their peers, contradicting parts of a 2005 Pew study that detailed an economic "digital divide." According to the new study, a full 94 percent of students use the Internet, 82 percent use it at home, and 77 percent have social-networking profiles.
The "digital divide," obviously, goes far beyond Facebook profiles, and social networks come with a whole host of new problems like cyberbullying, but at least there are signs that it could be leveling the playing field a bit.
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