Abstract :
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently published a series of intriguing patent applications from Google. They raise questions about the search giant¿s significance for the profitability of social networks¿and whether anyone has figured out how best to translate Web 2.0 hype into bankable income. Dozens of social-networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and Friendster continue to flourish like Web start¿ups in the dot-com heyday¿consuming engineering talent, computing resources, and thousands of lines of code along the way.
