What Does Friendster Have Up Its Sleeve? Receives Another $10 Million

After receiving $3.1 million in funding only a few months ago, social networking veteran, Friendster, has received another $10 million from Palo Alto-based DAG Ventures. This comes at a time when the market is being flooded with new social networks and Myspace, Facebook, and Bebo seem to be dominating. Yes, Friendster has around 30 million users which is not too shabby, but how many of those users are active on a weekly basis?

The only new development Friendster has announced with the new round of funding is the fact that they will be targeting 20 - 30 year olds. This is obviously a smart move considering most of their existing users are in that age range, and the teen market is oogly eyed over Myspace. So the big question is what in the world is Friendster going to do with $10 million? Or the more important question to myspace, bebo, tribe, linkedin, facebook, and the rest of the social networking world, is Friendster planning on enforcing their newly awarded social networking patent?

Friendster has proven in the past that they can’t keep up with the rapidly changing social networking scene, so why would they be able to now? In addition, the 20 - 30 year old market has much better solutions such as the rapidly growing Multiply.com.  While I would hate to see it happen, I personally believe that Friendster’s most viable option is to enforce their patent on the major social networks. It is the easiest and probably safest way to big bucks. While winning in court isn’t guaranteed, it is certainly less risky then trying to develop a new feature set in hopes of regaining the ground that they have lost. Which option do you think the VC’s would support?