After I read the full article in Red Herring, the patent seems much less..dire than it appeared in the original BoingBoing post where I found it. Rather than patenting the concept of Social Networking it patents a very specific type of Social Network - one which limits becoming someone’s “friend” by a number of degrees - but it does still open up some questions about what they plan to do in regards to some of the other Social Networks with a similiar set up (i.e., Linked In) out there.