In another setback for social networking giant Facebook, the mobile app Friendthem has announced plans to sue the company for its newly launched mobile feature, Find Friends Nearby, when it confirms certain “information.”
Here at ValueWalk, we wrote about this new feature early on Monday.
According to Mashable, the problems began this winter. Friendthem CEO Charles Sankowich allegedly told a senior Facebook executive in February about his idea to utilize a smartphones’ GPS signal to track nearby friends and possibly new ones. After the meeting, the unidentified Facebook executive supposedly said, “I really like this idea.”
Sankowich said to Mashable, “Friendthem is something special and we could be one of the most important apps for Facebook in a long time. When the world understands how important our message is, Friendthem could be one of the most important apps out there, so I don’t know why they’re going around us to do this.”
But Facebook has said the idea is from a company named hackathon; it was supposed to be named Friendshake but Sankowich doesn’t buy it.
He said, “They have to know about Friendthem unless they’ve had their heads in the sand. We’re relevant, we’re necessary and we’re fun.”
Friendthem plans to move forward with its lawsuit and its attorney Les Apple said to Mashable, “We will proceed with a lawsuit as soon as we confirm the information we have, but we don’t want to do things irresponsibly.”
What exactly is Friendthem?
So what exactly are these two companies fighting over? To access Friendthem, it is available through Android and iOS. It connects to Facebook accounts and finds people nearby by choosing information, such as name, profile picture or hometown that you’d like to share. One option is to not choose anything.
Friendthem’s website says, “Friendthem is a location-based mobile app designed to help you make connections with people near you. Use the Friendthem app to follow up on missed connections for work and personal.”
Sankowich had trademarked the term Friendthem early last year about six months after it launched; he also has three more trademarks in the works for the “life happens, people connect;” “life happens when you connect;” and “you never know what a friend request can lead to” reported Mashable.
What do you think, does this sound similar to Find Friends Nearby?
