Here is an email that we received from Multiply.com, one of the top social networks. Rather than weigh on it, we would rather have you decide on and see for yourself its merits (ot otherwise):
Just one week after Facebook filed suit against German social networking site StudiVZ for infringement on Facebook’s “look, feel, features, and services,” they have unveiled their new site design – the latest in a series of enhancements that bear striking resemblance to innovations made by Multiply months earlier.
Multiply launched its proprietary newsfeed in August of 2004, when the site launched. Two years later, Facebook introduced a similar, yet more basic, news feed for its users. Blogging, one of Multiply’s core features since launch, was introduced to Facebook more than 20 months later, and video sharing, a Multiply feature since June 2005, was introduced on Facebook nearly 16 months later. In September 2004, Multiply introduced photo printing services for its users, something that Facebook implemented two years later. In its most recent enhancement, “New Facebook†features several changes – both aesthetically and functionally – that make Facebook look and feel even more like Multiply.
These are five examples, out of many, which illustrate a pattern of Multiply’s social networking innovations being implemented on Facebook months, if not years, later. So one might ask: who is copying whom?
Multiply continues to be a pioneer in social networking, offering relationship-based networking with your contacts and “friends of friends,” without the artificial pressure to add every person in your
real world network as a “friend.” Multiply was the first to offer mobile blogging, photo and video sharing, and most recently, with the introduction of Premium, became the first social network to offer users the ability to store their photos and videos in their original, high-resolution formats.
Below, please find a document with side-by-side screenshots of Multiply and Facebook that illustrate these similarities, as well as a chart that outlines several remaining differentiators between the two
sites.
Teen destination myYearbook.com has raised $13 million in Series B funding from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) with existing investors, US Venture Partners and First Round Capital, participating. myYearbook will use the funds to develop new services for its members and continue to drive revenue.
