Gawker: valleywag, aaron greenspan

Facebook Disappears Legal Problem

Ryan Tate — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:57:54 EDT

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Facebook settled a long-running trademark suit from Aaron Greenspan (pictured), the Harvard student whose "Universal Face Book" system predated Facebook and was used heavily by its founder before he publicly branded his own social network. Greenspan is just the latest mess Facebook has tidied up.

Greenspan's suit argues he originated the company's name and that the company's trademark is thus invalid. It's been in court for six months. The company has resolved the case just as it prepares to buy out employees antsy to cash out their shares and as it raises new funding to provide a "buffer" against the economy.

It's especially nice to resolve those sorts of problems if you're going to IPO, as Business Insider notes. And while we're not questioning founder Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity when he says the company won't go public for several years, at this rate we wouldn't be surprised if it happened sooner.

(Pic via Think Computer)

Facebook still facing existential legal threat

Owen Thomas — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:20:00 EDT

New Facebook lawyer Ted Ullyot will have his hands full. Before Mark Zuckerberg came along, every college had a facebook — a collection of pictures of the incoming freshman class, distributed in print. But now, there's only one Facebook. Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard student who came up with an online facebook called HouseSystem prior to the creation of Facebook, has long disputed Zuckerberg's claim to the idea — and he's been disputing the company's name, too. Records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now show that Greenspan's suit to cancel Facebook's trademark has resumed, having survived two motions to dismiss. The most probable outcome here: Like Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who claim they hired Zuckerberg to work on their college social network, ConnectU, Greenspan will get paid off with a piece of Facebook, too.

Where Facebook's features came from — not the mind of Mark Zuckerberg, says Harvard classmate

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:40:00 EDT

In this excerpt from Harvard alumnus Aaron Greenspan's book, Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era, Greenspan gives an example of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg copying a feature idea from Greenspan's own Harvard project, HouseSystem.

How Mark Zuckerberg allegedly nicked the idea of an online facebook

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Aaron Greenspan's Authoritas, a self-published history of his time at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, is full of passages the Facebook founder would rather you not read. In this excerpt, Greenspan recounts the moment when, as a member of Harvard's Student Entrepreneurship Council and creator of the
HouseSystem Face Book, he met a supersecretive wantrepreneur named Mark Zuckerberg.

Harvard classmate claims Zuckerberg stole Facebook's name

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Facebook lawyers want to bar Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard chum of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, from marketing his new book, Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era. Their rationale: It uses the company's trademarked name improperly in the title. But their real goal is surely quashing Greenspan's story. In this excerpt from Greenspan's tell-all, the author argues that Zuckerberg stole the name Facebook from Greenspan's creation, HouseSystem.

Another Harvard student files suit over Facebook's founding

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:20:00 EDT

Facebook lawyers won't let Think Computers founder Aaron Greenspan use the company's name to market his new self-pubished book, Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era . These lawyers say it would violate Facebook's trademark. So Greenspan has petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Facebook's claim to the name. The suit rehashes Greenspan's old arguments that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole his idea.

Think began using the term "The Facebook" to describe one of the components of its houseSYSTEM student portal at Harvard University in the summer of 2003. It launched the feature on September 19, 2003, several months before thefacebook.com began accepting new users on February 4, 2004. thefacebook.com was later incorporated as Facebook, Inc. Think CEO Aaron Greenspan, who authored the book in question, was classmates with Facebook, Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard when both sites were on-line.

Facebook founder's sordid college days

Owen Thomas — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:26:57 EST

02138, an independent magazine for Harvard alumni, has done an in-depth profile of Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg and the on-campus origins of Facebook. There's plenty on the lawsuit filed by the Winklevoss twins and ConnectU, the Facebook rival for which Zuckerberg did some programming work. But the magazine digs deeper and gets some tantalizing details. Did you know that Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin and Zuckerberg sparred over money, and Saverin is suing Zuckerberg for squeezing him out of the company? Or that fellow Harvard alums Sanjay Mavinkurve, Joe Jackson, and Victor Gao also did programming for ConnectU — and thereby might have a claim to the title of wannabe Facebook founders? Aaron Greenspan, whose HouseSystem social network may have inspired Zuckerberg, also makes an appearance. Zuckerberg didn't speak to the magazine for the story, but his response to Harvard's Administrative Board still rings true today.

After the Winklevosses brought charges against Zuckerberg for violating college rules, he responded in a letter:

Frankly, I'm kind of appalled that they're threatening me after the work I've done for them free of charge, but after dealing with a bunch of other groups with deep pockets and good legal connections including companies like Microsoft, I can't say I'm surprised. I try to shrug it off as a minor annoyance that whenever I do something successful, every capitalist out there wants a piece of the action.

The board decided the matter lay outside Harvard's purview, and the case will no doubt be settled in court. (Or out of court, now that Facebook has raised $240 million from Microsoft.) Whatever you think of the merits of the case, the 02138 profile has come to a definitive ruling: For such a nice guy — the "crazy kid" who only cares about his users — Zuckerberg is a quick study when it comes to capitalism.

Founders Club, MC Hammer take over SNL studios

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:00:18 EST

Digital media types here in New York are always looking for a reason to celebrate their own achievements. A couple of months ago, a few of them began calling themselves the Founders Club and decided to start holding mixers around town. Last night, NBC hosted the latest in the series on the set of Saturday Night Live. Who showed? Mostly wantrepreneurs looking for a VC teat to suckle, of course. But I also ran into Digg CEO Jay Adelson, pictured above; a definitely not-pictured angel Ron Conway, who dodged my camera; a Facebook "founder"; and MC Hammer.

Probably the biggest surprise last night was that despite Facebook's busy day announcing new features to allow users to spam each other, one of the company's Harvard connections still showed at last night's Founders Club party here in New York. Which one? ConnectU founder and litigious claimant to the Facebook throne, Divya Narendra, of course.

What, you were expecting Adidas? I asked Narendra what he really thinks of Zuckerberg, but he wouldn't. Didn't want to piss off his lawyers. Narendra was happy to dish on fellow wannabe Facebook founder Aaron Greenspan, however.

"I have no idea how he got that New York Times article," Narendra told me. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

Bitches just jealous.

New York angel investor Ron Conway also turned up last night. I'd have snapped a photo of him, but for a big fella, the man pulls a mean pirouette at the sight of a camera. And did you really want to see a photo of his backside? Silicon Alley wantrepreneurs are not allowed to answer that.

One thing I didn't know about Adelson: Apparently he lives in Dutchess County, north of New York, and commutes to San Francisco to run Digg. Does this mean we can claim him for Silicon Alley? (Ed.'s note: No.)

CollegeHumor's Zach Klein and Ricky Van Veen also showed, dragging down the whole affair with their ironic style and funny-looking glasses. They only cost $7 dollars on eBay. Father figures Josh Mohrer of BustedTees and Vimeo's Jonathan Marcus mostly managed to keep the boys in line, though dress code violations (sneakers) barred the entire crew from the Rainbow Room afterparty. Nobody said beauty was easy, fellas.

Someone's jealous: A college pal writes an open letter to Facebook's founder

Nick Douglas — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:18:55 EDT

Years ago at Harvard, one student worked hard to translate the old world of the college's Face Book into a modern, networked guide to who's doing what. That student was, of course, Aaron Greenspan. Then Mark Zuckerberg signed up for his network (houseSYSTEM), ate dinner with him, took his idea and ran.

To be fair, it seems Mark thought of Facebook before he saw houseSYSTEM. But in Aaron's new open letter to Mark, he teases, "When you saw all those features in houseSYSTEM three years ago, you called them 'too useful,' but I stood by them as valuable. Fortunately, even though I shut down houseSYSTEM, I can still use those same features on Facebook—and I didn't even have to write any more code!"

Aaron's cheeky letter goes too far (most of Facebook's users "have no purchasing power," he says of a population mostly made of college alumni), but that's just because Aaron's giddy about relaunching houseSYSTEM as Common Room. So far the site only claims 948 members at 103 colleges and companies, so it's more like the invite-only network aSmallWorld, but without the ludicrously lucrative user base of rich kids who attract BMW and premium vodka advertising. The new site claims to be "an internet within the internet" — forcing the question, "Who needs another Internet?"

An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg [Aaron Greenspan]