This Could Be Big

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A news feed is a format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator. Facebook has been awarded a major patent for “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network” -

Essentially it includes the generation of feed stories followed by the limiting of viewers of those stories. As many avid followers of the social networking space know, the feed (also called the “stream”) has become one of the central components of online social activity.

This is an interesting development in the social networking space and I'm curious how Facebook will decide to enforce this patent. Like other writers I hope this is defensive and that this doesn't become a major loss for the rest of the social web.

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