The New York Times has discovered a new claimant for the title of founder of Facebook.
Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg claims that he created the original college social networking system, before either Facebook or ConnectU were founded.
Mr. Greenspan is said to have established a web service that he called houseSYSTEM in 2003, 6 months prior to Facebook launching. houseSYSTEM was used by several thousand Harvard students and provided similar features to what is found today in Facebook; Zuckerberg was a user of houseSYSTEM. Greenspan is also claiming credit for Facebook’s name: he showed the Times an email dated Sept. 19, 2003 describing the newest feature of houseSYSTEM as “the Face Book.” Facebook initially launched under the name and URL of “TheFacebook” in 2004.
Unlike the founders of ConnectU who are suing Zuckerberg for control of Facebook, Greenspan’s claim so far only extends to wanting recognition by others as being the founder of Facebook.
Update: In related news, Facebook has once again asked a judge to throw out ConnectU’s law suit. More here.
be that another 10 Zuckerbers, it’s about execution not an idea – ideas are always the same
Zuckerberg should just preemtively pay Greenspan a modest fee for his idea (undercutting those silly twins) and get on with his business.
Duncan,
I was wondering how long it would take you guys to get this story. The NY Times had is several hours ago. But that’s Ok, I’ve still learned more about tech from your site than the Times. I admire how fast you usually get the news up.
Andrew
Saturday morning here and I was slow out of bed…I’ll set the alarm earlier next week
With success comes great jealousy.
Another case for Ruthless files — but I wonder what Karma will have to say about it in the end
I am Spartac… I mean Facebook’s founder
I agree with the rest…execution is key. You can give 2 identical sites with identical features, and the same look and one person can make it a milllion dollar idea, and the other’s idea will fizzle.
I think it’s fair if Greenspan’s idea was the original service that he at least deserves some props. That’s all…
There are currently in my honest and must humble opinion, 5 ideas to choose from on the internet. The rest are simply different permutations and combinations of the pool.
To claim that one stole one’s idea, is simply rhetoric based on ones own arbitrary whim.
His intentions, if you have not already discovered, have nothing to do with facebook, or zukerberg.
Good Day…..night.
It is not so unusual when a few people get together and throw ideas around that, all, or one, will take the collective discussion and incorporate it as his own. Happens everyday. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if some judge found that ALL of these kids are equally responsible for the creation of FaceBook. Stranger things have happened in a courst of law. Remember O.J. ? LOL
I wouldn’t be so fast to dismiss this, sounds like an infraction…
Is it me or is this starting to get freakin ridiculous?
Next we will hear that Zsa Zsa Gabors husband actually started FB
You cant say you founded something because you had similar features or even similar service, or uttered a statement that would one day be similar to a product.
You founded it if you founded it.
If you want to claim a prior-art patent on it, or a trademark on a name, then do it in court and prove it, but just blabbering it is blahblahblah.
The hard work of *any* successful website is marketing it to bring it to critical mass – that was the key element of work that wasnt achieved with houseSYSTEM.
To Aaron Greenspan: WHO CARES? Nobody CARES who founded Facebook. I don’t even care who is Facebook’s CEO. Repeat: I do not care if even Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, is Facebook’s CEO, or if he is the guy who restarts their servers when they go down.
It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I can use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends, to waste time, to be entertained, to hit on chicks. That matters.
Whoever the dude is that made it/builds it — that is completely unimportant. So please, let’s stop wasting time on this topic. Nobody except you cares.
Ideas are a dime a dozen
If the idea had flopped would anybody share in the failure or would anyone claim that it was their idea .
I need some press from major news organizations . I think I will claim that google was my idea … I don’t want a lot of money just give me $50 milion and I will not sue for the whole company .
Spartacus — admit it. You got the idea from me.
I went to Harvard undegrad and I was a freshman in 1994, many years before facebook was launched (or even conceived). Back then, everybody called the little bound volume with pictures of every freshman that they distributed on the first day of school “the face book.” I had always assumed, since Facebook started at Harvard, that that is where the name came from.
I had forgotten about housesystem, but the Times article reminded me that
I had signed up for a housesystem account and when I first noticed facebook, I was confused because the two web sites were so conceptually similar.
That being said, as others have said, the similarities don’t mean very much. Just because facebook succeeded doesn’t mean that a similar site would have succeeded if facebook hadn’t been invented. There’s a lot of luck involved in almost any Internet success.
If you want to take a look at housesystem, it’s archived at http://web.arch...harvardsec.org/
i am so fed up of people claiming ideas after the fact…if you didn’t launch, you did not launch. Get over it!
Success = 1% idea + 99% execution
All of us have ideas. Imagine if someone has sued Tim Berners-Lee for the idea of the Internet…”hey, I had the idea of connecting up computers!”
Everyone knows that I founded Facebook.
Sheesh!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Anyone else want to claim FB? I have never used facebook and I do not plan too.
Sure, success is all in the execution, which Zuck & co. did wonderfully… But for anyone (especially mainstream media) calling him a “genius”, well he’s not. He’s just a rich kid who had the money, time, and connections to make it happen.
It seems that Harvard should own Facebook. Maybe they will be next in line to sue.
People are still using facebook?
Seriously, how many of these commenters work for facebook? Unbias comments please…
i think someone(bill gates ?) plagiarized my idea of creating Microsoft. i will sue
Lets be honest, its all well and good having an idea, but you’ve got to realize that idea and get something out there. Zuckerberg did it. Aaron is now seething with jealousy he didn’t.
While I was in kindergarten I made something which I called a ‘facebook’ containing drawings, albeit of a potato headed nature, of members of my group. Each page had their age, name and what they loved. Do you think I could sue?
OK I admit it, I invented FaceBook for golfers. Heck I even invented golf. The golf ball, my idea. Golf clubs, oh yes mine. I belong to every country club as well because, well yes, I invented golf courses.
I founded Facebook.
I founded Microsoft when Zookuhberg was swimming in his daddy’s balls.
If you want to see Greenspan’s story of how he wrote his system, it’s all here
http://www.aaro...read/index.html
What do all of these lies have to do with sand and hour glasses? Are you people crazy?
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Greenspan didn’t even have social-networking features or detailed profiles on his website. Read here:
http://www.aaro...d.html?page=299
If he had a claim worth talking about, he would have filed a civil suit, but he has none. And statute of limitations have no doubt run out.
Moreover, everything Greenspan did was in the public domain, with no confidentiality or proprietary markings. His site was developed by an entreuprenuer’s club at school, with a board of members, not as a for profit business.
Alan Greenspan invented Facebook… that explains everything.
All this shows the popularity of Facebook.
All of these guys have to get in the queue after me. I did it, almost accidentally to boot:
http://blogs.zo...ented-facebook/
Yes, but I invented the Internet. (no, it wasn’t Al Gore)
idiots spamming this site
fuckin losers.
I agree that his new site doesn’t look all that promising (being on the internet is going to waste your time to some extent no matter what). Still, maybe I’m gullible, but I think his claim of houseSystem/TheFacebook being a precursor of facebook is reasonable
It does appear Zuck violated his classmate’s trust. He milked them. I think he probably made verbal comittments, and never thought about emails etc between them might just bite him in his ass someday. By using all the collective data, and yes, CODE, he flew the coop snickering like Snidely Whiplash. By moving to the left coast, far away from his associates, he began to put ALL OF THEIR COLLECTIVE ideas together and launch. Oh sure, he launched the business, however, it was all done without ethics. In other words, he fucked his buddies for a buck. Now, how typical is that in the Valley?
It happens everyday.He needs to remember tho, what goes around, comes around.
Come on! Facebook is Facebook, and houseSYSTEM is houseSYSTEM. The social networking concepts are not that diverse. Facebook, Myspace, etc all share the same features.It’s not like it’s Google or something.
Zuckerberg comes off as a thief
=). When will this ever stop?
http://www.fant...portsmatrix.com
“It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I can use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends, to waste time, to be entertained, to hit on chicks.”
last night i hit on your momma
I thought God created Facebook?
let there be http://www.facebook.com
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