Archive for the ‘copy’ tag
Startup ‘David’ battles Facebook ‘Goliath’ in DNA
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Facebook STOP copying from Startups
Two days ago, Mashable reported that facebook is testing out a new feature called “Related Photos”. Read their coverage here: http://mashable.com/2010/05/28/facebook-related-photos/.
With this supposed innovation, facebook will now start showing other photos of people who are face-tagged in a photo next to it. The application feature addition is designed to drive users to explore additional photos that may be of interest based on the photo they’re currently viewing, thereby further personalizing the experience (and increasing page views).
Just to set the record straight, we have had this feature ( and a lot more ) at http://www.lifeblob.com for over a year now and facebook has blatantly copied it. Every time you upload a photo on lifeblob, a recommendation engine not only looks at the face tags, but also the other information associated wtih your photo to show you photos that are closely related around it.So when you upload your graduation day photos, we discover other photos of your graduation day and show it next to your photo. What facebook has done is picked up this idea and launched a simple version of it that only uses face tags. Bravo!!
To see the similarity of the features, look at the screenshots posted side by side below, the first one from lifeblob and the second one from facebook.
Notice the similarity? First facebook copied from friend feed, then they copied from twitter and now they have not even spared copying ideas from startups like lifeblob. With the changes in patenting law, it is hard for companies like ours to get pure software patents anymore. And even if we did have a patent on this, a startup like ours would still not have the wherewithal to drag facebook to the court of law for infringing on our intellectual property.
But what we can do is to publicly expose the dirty game that facebook is playing and how they are blatantly copying innovative features from startups. For this purpose, I have setup a facebook page ( to beat the lion in its den ) where I would encourage everyone to come and express their opinion and also share similar incidents that may have happened with them in the past.
Please spread the word and like this page ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Facebook-STOP-copying-from-Indian-Startups/128733897152335 ) to express your solidarity and stop facebook from blatantly copying from startups.
