Startup Claims Google Copied Web-Annotation Product 167
An anonymous reader writes "Web annotation startup ReframeIt claim Google copied their web annotation product when releasing Google Sidewiki. At first glance, the products do look quite similar, and this eWeek article has some interesting evidence, including suspicious user registrations by Google employees and an attempt by Google to hire off ReframeIt's lead engineer."
Comparison shots didn't persuade me (Score:5, Insightful)
I was expecting some damning evidence from the comparison shots [eweek.com], but it just looks like Google made their own implementation of the same features. Copying features happens, and it's not illegal.
Re:Comparison shots didn't persuade me (Score:5, Interesting)
A month after we implemented it, Google came out with the same thing. At first, the boss' reaction was "See how good an idea it was?" Of course, the idea turned out to be a turkey ("McDonalds food tastes like shit" was one of the first comments for mcdonalds.com).
It's still a shitty idea.
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Exactly. Here is how the process works: http://wondermark.com/555/ [wondermark.com].
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I can see your point. If I wanted to know what shit tastes like, I wouldn't necessarily know to search for McDonalds. But thanks. Now I know that, should I be curious about fecal flavour, I'll be sure to try McDonalds.
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Try the McNuggets - they're made from the one part of a chicken that KFC doesn't use (and now you know why there's usually a Mcdonalds next to a KFC - those chicken assholes are the tenderest part of t
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This was part of the original idea in Ted Nelson's Xanadu design in the 1960s, the original hypertext system. The user interface where you match the comments to what they are about was also in his system - at that point represented in a demo by 3x5" cards and string, as far as I remember.
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So he's the inventor of string information theory? KEWL.
Well, prior art dating back to the '60s certainly puts the torpedo into their hull. Thanks for the info.
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I remember this popping up back in the 90s as well, though I thought it was actually a good, if not especially novel, idea. The main issue isn't technological, it's just marketshare; in order for this to work right just about everyone has to be using the same service.
Or a standard agreed upon, so that the service provider doesn't matter...
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The whole concept sucks.
1. When you're doing a search, you just want to find the web site that has what you want. Good search engines do their job and then get out of your way. This whole "annotate and comment and rate" is contrary to that.
2. The ratings are easily manipulated by people, as are the comments, etc.
3. If I want to see comments about something, lots of sites allow me to comment directly. WTF would anyone want to use one of hundreds of different "services" to do that rather than at th
in all honesty..... (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you look at it, Toyota's share a lot of the major functionality of Fords. They all have a round steering wheel, for example; do you think they came up with that by accident, or do you think they were looking at other cars? They may have even had Fords available at the Toyota design offices in Japan.
Seriously, if you have a small idea that takes a small team less than six months to create, then you better have a really good marketing, a good implementation and sharp execution, otherwise some big company is going to do the same thing and win because they have better visibility and more resources.
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Seriously, if you have a small idea that takes a small team less than six months to create, then you better have a really good marketing, a good implementation and sharp execution, otherwise some big company is going to do the same thing and win because they have better visibility and more resources.
Unless its an invention in which case you can patent it for a dozen years.
Or a work of 'art' that you can copyright until everyone alive today is dead.
So apparently some small ideas are very well protected, whil
Re:in all honesty..... (Score:5, Insightful)
For every one that succeeded in rising there are 1000 more who were just as talented and hard working who didn't make it.
I doubt it, why do you think that? It's rare that I've met people who worked hard in a directed way without becoming quite successful. There are too many ways to succeed in this life for your ratio of 1 to 1000 to actually be true.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of people who thought that they had worked hard, then given up, and told themselves that it was impossible and stopped trying. I've never met one of them that actually achieved success.
Occasionally you will find someone who was talented, and worked hard, and expected the world to be dropped in his lap. This type of person is almost always disappointed. Success rarely will come to you; it's something you have to go and take.
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"Success rarely will come to you; it's something you have to go and take."
Usually by force and deception.
Re:in all honesty..... (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't live in a 19th century Marxist oppression society anymore. We live in a land of freedom, where if you create things people value, you can get paid for it. In general the more value you create, the more you will get paid.
Of course, there are some tricksters who manage to get paid more than they are worth, but you will see these on all levels of society, from the poor to the rich. In fact, some of your coworkers are probably like that right now.
Where's the mode for (Score:4, Insightful)
+1, inspiringly naive
It would be nice to live in your world.
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You're casting pearls before swine. Most people find it more comforting to blame others for their lack of success than to go out and work the 60+ hours a week and take the risks. Even by a reasonably modest definition of financial success (over 100k a year), you find that most of those people regularly spend some of their free time honing their skills instead of bitching about their bosses. Then again, most people making 100k or more a year are self-employed and willing to sacrifice a little comfort and
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Then again, most people making 100k or more a year are self-employed and willing to sacrifice a little comfort and take some extra risk in order to get ahead in the long run.
Hardly, most of the people I work with make a lot more than that, and none of them are even close to managerial level. They are, however, engineers. If you have a valuable skill to sell, you can make a good deal of money by selling it to the right people. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. Hell there are a few experienced helpdesk techs in our group who make nearly 100k, and I'm currently under-paid for my skills at around 50k (I'm working on that, contracts are a bitch sometimes).
The 100k mark is ac
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The majority of people actually earn way less than half of 100k per year. 84% of U.S. HOUSEHOLDS, not just individuals, make less than 100k, per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
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Now, doesn't that really depend upon your measure of success. Say for example you just want to be generally healthy and happy, have very little desire to dominate and control others, well, that doesn't really require all that much effort at all, in fact excess effort tends to detract and not add to that lifestyle. As it turns out of fact you need to spend more time preventing other over achieving 'successful' types from attempting to destroy your peaceful lifestyle in order to feed their ego and fear drive
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I always love these self justifications for being successful. Yeah, to be really successful, you have to work hard, you have to have some brights, of course. But, you don't mention anything about luck, or inspiration, or maybe taking credit for someone else's work. No - it's the "I'm special, I deserve it" line, all the way.
Yeah, I'm a little bit bitter. Many people are. Maybe some of us who never made it into the big time don't deserve the millions. Maybe we didn't work quite hard enough, maybe we we
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Yeah, I'm a little bit bitter. Many people are. Maybe some of us who never made it into the big time don't deserve the millions.
Deserve's got nothing to do with it. Powerful people try to get what they want. Weak people try to get what they deserve. No one will ever say to you, "Boy, you've been so good, you deserve to be a millionaire now." It's something you have to do for yourself.
But, please, don't try to convince the world that the system is working right, or that it's self correcting, and that we all deserve to be at the bottom of the food chain.
If you're at the bottom of the food chain, it's because you're satisfied to stay there. I talk
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Piss off you arrogant twat.
I'm not saying "OOOH! I want to be successful like you!", I'm telling you that you live in a fantasy world. It's a lie that a lot of americans buy into and that's used as a justification to slither out of social responsibilities.
"I deserve it!" they bleat, having been handed it on a silver platter, and the masses swallow the abuse because they've been taught that it's them next, next week they get to be the abusive overlord they think.
It's all bullshit.
BTW I earn very well and hav
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"I deserve it!" they bleat, having been handed it on a silver platter, and the masses swallow the abuse because they've been taught that it's them next, next week they get to be the abusive overlord they think.
Who the hell says "I deserve it?" Even people who inherit tons of money won't say they deserve it. Powerful people know how to take what they want, they understand how it works. It is in no way about deserve, but you have to know how to take it.
Otherwise you will be stuck on the bottom clamoring that it is your 'right' to have someone else pay for your healthcare. They don't call it
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Man, that first real job is going to kick five different shades of crap out of you. Good luck, kid. You're going to need it.
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I was sincerely wishing you luck. As you are, so was I. As I am, so shall you be.
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Surely people on a tech site should realize that connections aren't the most important thing. If someone makes a great new invention, he'll have investors throwing money at him. Connections only matter when you have nothing else.
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That doesn't sound like a success. And I'm not trying to be mean, I work those same kinds of hours, and my main life goal now is to achieve as much leisure as practical.
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For me, life is ab
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Oh, and none of my immediate family are on the government dole. They chose to make good choices in life and work h
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They chose to make good choices in life and work hard,...
And what? So far so good? You think that can't change in the blink of an eye? You think you are somehow 'protected' by good choices and hard work? Don't be an idiot.
Any one of them could be impoverished in a heart beat if life throws them the right curve ball.
Just because it hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it can't happen. It does happen. And congratulating yourself on your 'good choices and hard work' will seem pretty hollow th
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Any one of them could be impoverished in a heart beat if life throws them the right curve ball.
You know, if everyone used that excuse as a reason not to work hard toward their goals, zero progress would be made in the world. Any given world leader, business pioneer, or great contributor to the sciences could have been hit by a bus instead of going on to live a successful life. That didn't stop them, and it shouldn't stop anyone else.
Your excuses seem pretty hollow to me.
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You might die some day... How unexpected!
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You know, if everyone used that excuse as a reason not to work hard toward their goals, zero progress would be made in the world
What the hell are you on about? Its not a reason not to work hard toward goals. I NEVER suggested people shouldn't work hard or use it as an excuse for not trying.
Any given world leader, business pioneer, or great contributor to the sciences could have been hit by a bus instead of going on to live a successful life. That didn't stop them, and it shouldn't stop anyone else.
Right but
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You say it as if poverty is some horrible thing to be feared.
In a capitalism... it pretty much is.
At least, assuming you like the security of knowing you can provide food for your next meal, or obtain health care, or have a roof over your head.
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As a result, I'll be keeping my money in the bank while my neighbors are struggling to pay their bills.
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I doubt it, why do you think that?
Because the top, the top couple percent, the people who make up the 'rich and powerful' is a pretty rarefied group. And its not possible for most people to make it here, no matter how hard they work at it.
It's rare that I've met people who worked hard in a directed way without becoming quite successful
Define 'quite successful'. Per the context of the conversation: it was intended to mean 'got on top', true wealth and power.
It was not 'middle class' and 'able to retire in re
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Because the top, the top couple percent, the people who make up the 'rich and powerful' is a pretty rarefied group. And its not possible for most people to make it here, no matter how hard they work at it.
This is a tautology. I'm not sure what you mean by 'rarefied' exactly, but the top two percent by definition is 2 out of every hundred. Of course I am not saying everyone can get in the top two percent, that is meaningless.
People who are powerful have worked hard to improve their skill. Take Warren Buffet, who is at times the richest man in the world. He worked hard, looked for knowledge everywhere he could, learned some hard lessons and kept going. You could do that too.....practically anyone could, may
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People who are powerful have worked hard to improve their skill. Take Warren Buffet, who is at times the richest man in the world. He worked hard, looked for knowledge everywhere he could, learned some hard lessons and kept going. You could do that too.....practically anyone could, maybe you won't make billions like he did but you could easily make millions. But you won't. Why not?
Warren Buffet got where he is by getting lucky, then compounding that luck with many years of smart governance and investment. Not to say that he doesn't deserve his success, but luck is why he's a billionaire and not an unknown millionaire.
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As far as deserve, you may not say he doesn't deserve it, but I will. No one deserves to have a billion dollars. He managed to do it because there was such a lack of competition in his field. If there were more competent people doing what he does, then it would have been harder for him to become a billionaire. Although in that case he still w
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Of course I am not saying everyone can get in the top two percent, that is meaningless.
Exactly!!! Thank you. That is EXACTLY what I am saying. Of course its impossible.
You could do that too.....practically anyone could, maybe you won't make billions like he did but you could easily make millions.
You were bang on with the first part, why did you stumble here? Its essentially exactly the same meaningless tautology you correctly debunked, yet now you are appealing to it. "anyone could do what buffet does, and
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"anyone could do what buffet does, and make millions, if not billions".
Wow, learn to read. Did I say "Everyone could do what buffet does...."? No, I said anyone could do what Buffet does. If everyone did what Buffet does, then the job would become worthless and you wouldn't get paid much for it. Just like if everyone became a programmer, there would be low demand for programmers and the wages would go down. That is why if you want to decrease the income disparity the best way to do so is to increase the productivity of the weak ones.
On the other hand so few people even t
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You are a kid.
Compare that to Richard Stallman, who has little money, and yet has had a huge influence in the software world. You may or may not agree with Mr. Stallman, but you can't deny his ideas have changed the way the world looks at software. That is power.
Tomorrow the USA will decide to invade Iran, or not.
Stallman has no vote/word in that. He has no power at all. Just like you and me.
You don't know what power is. RMS has "influence" but not power, and if you would literally translate the word influe
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You are a kid.
You are dumb.
In fact you are a waste of my time. But consider this: there is more than one type of power. If I punch you in the face, you will fall on the ground in pain. That is power, physical power. If I hire a hitman to kill you, that is power too; the power of money.
Stallman isn't interested in money, or invading Iran. He uses his power to get what he wants. Keep your conversation in English and you might learn something.
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Actually, kinda. The superwealthy, though their fortunes might fluctuate, are forever out of the rat race.
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What is guaranteed? Does being on top guarantee that you'll stay on top? I'd imagine it's the opposite when people are clamouring to undo you.
Provided they don't do anything colossally stupid: Yes, they will stay on top.
The Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, Kerrys, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, ... they and there families will remain on top for as long they don't do anything catastrophically stupid.
And why do you want to be so rich and powerful anyway? Does that bring you more happiness?
That's really beside
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Clintons?
Are you crazy? You could argue that Bill Clinton's family now will 'remain on top', but it's not because he was born into wealth. His is not a 'wealthy family'. His step-father was co-owner of an auto-dealership.
Nor is he particularly wealthy currently, either. He could live off his fame, all former presidents can do that, but his assets have him nowhere near the superrich.
And the 'Kerry' family isn't rich. The 'Heinz' amily is the rich one, which Kerry married into. (I'm not disagreeing with y
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re: Clintons
His is not a 'wealthy family'.
'wealth and power'
Now, from what I've read they have $50 million in cash, plus assets on top of that (cars, home, etc). And as former U.S. president, Senator, etc, they are very well connected to the power elite. Not to mention that Bill made 10 Million in paid speeches for 2006 alone, for example.
Yeah, they aren't billionaires, or 'old money', but they are still well beyond what most people realistically hope to ever achieve. And between that and their connections
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$50 million and $100 million puts people nowhere near the top couple percent we were talking about.
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It depends upon your field of endeavor : A mildly talented and moderately hard working technical or business person will achieve considerable financial success during their lifetime. A highly talented and very hard working musician, artist, writer, academic, etc. will not necessarily achieve much success or even recognition. I think the dirty little secret in academia is in how many technical and scientific disciplines this holds too. I guess you can start a series of failed companies too, but that may
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Well said. I personally know hundreds of Bill Gateses, and I don't know anyone who doesn't.
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It's software. When you have the same problem, you're going to solve in a very similar manner. Unless the algorithms are the same, having the functionality being the same isn't copying. Linux is a copy of Unix but the underlying code is completely different.
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in all honesty..... however mistaken (Score:2)
Except that Google used content searching and information about links, while AltaVista used full-word content searching with many spiders, while Aliweb avoided spiders and used indexed descriptions rather than content. So other than being different, they were copies?
Yes, but is it illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand. TFA mentions nothing about any legal issues. Unless there's any patent infringement or trademark issues I don't see why this should be frowned upon. I don't care if Reframe is a small struggling company, as a consumer I want as many companies tearing eachother apart at the same time -- providing me with better services and lower prices. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that hinders development, and no the product might be very similar but it is not an exact copy, and even if it was I would never side with the people whom I do business with -- as that would be completely idiotic. I'm not even going to bother with the car analogies as you all know how silly this type of reasoning would be if it was applied there. What's next? Are we going to point fingers at Mozilla for not inventing the concept of the browser?
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I don't understand. TFA mentions nothing about any legal issues. Unless there's any patent infringement or trademark issues I don't see why this should be frowned upon.
Eh? It talks about them in some depth. It notes that RI's patents are pending so it can't sue until they issue, but it can amend them to strengthen a potential action. It has some discussion of their copyrights, as well.
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I don't understand. TFA mentions nothing about any legal issues. Unless there's any patent infringement or trademark issues I don't see why this should be frowned upon.
Eh? It talks about them in some depth. It notes that RI's patents are pending so it can't sue until they issue, but it can amend them to strengthen a potential action. It has some discussion of their copyrights, as well.
You're right, I didn't read the preamble. Still it was one sentence. You'd think there would be at least something pointing to what pending patents in specific. I don't understand how the article can be so long with so little actual substance.
Re:Yes, but is it illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
This is so ridiculous. They say they founded their company in 2006. They only registered their domain in 2007 [domaintools.com]. Their patent filing is so fresh, it still says "patent pending".
Personally, I've been making tools like this one since 2001 (and I know I wasn't the only one at the time). Mind you at the time, I didn't have the Twitter/Facebook share buttons (but now, everybody has those -- so it's not like they have anything unique). Besides, the guy complains about the Twitter and the Facebook buttons they both have in common, but if you look closely, you'll see that reframe has five select boxes, and Google has four buttons, and not only is Google only using buttons (instead of checkboxes) -- it has two share buttons that reframe doesn't even have (and it's missing three options that reframeit has).
And don't get me started on those screenshots, they're way too small to read fully (even if you do view image). And the first three screenshots have the same complaint duplicated (so aside from the arrows, I'm guessing that we're missing two of his complaints).
And then, look at what he ends his blog post with.
Excuse-me!? I've never heard of Reframeit.com. Does he have third party citations to back up his claims? Traffic stats? User reviews? Anything? Personally, I have, and reframeit doesn't even make it in the top ten [makeuseof.com].
And what about jotspot.com? Weren't they bought out by Google two or three years ago. Shouldn't this guy know this if he's in the space? Besides, it's not like jotspot would even qualify as a good web annotation tool, it was way too feature-rich to be in that category the last time I saw it.
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This is so ridiculous. ... Their patent filing is so fresh, it still says "patent pending".
It takes several years to get a patent awarded after date of filing. Five years seems about average, but I've seen much longer.
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It should be frowned upon because it is unethical to go around and try to poach staff....
Google is the larger player with the largest user base around so, in your "sold out view", it should be OK to hurt the small player so the mass market can get something for free right?
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Unethical? Why? Presumably the poached staff would be paid a lot more.
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It should be frowned upon because it is unethical to go around and try to poach staff....
Google is the larger player with the largest user base around so, in your "sold out view", it should be OK to hurt the small player so the mass market can get something for free right?
Who's ethics? Mine or yours? Because mine doesn't agree. Whenever someone uses the words "ethics" or "morals" you know he's about to sell you his point of view of the matter. Do you not understand that ethics and morals are highly individual and to even assume that the opposite party shares yours is insanely egocentric. Let me tell you when it is OK to "hurt the small player" or the "big player" or any "player", for me: when I profit from it -- period. That's the way any profitable company play and that's t
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I can see it's time for bed, because I'm spelling like an eight-year-old.
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Gordon Gekko, is that you? [youtube.com]
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You are a lovely man.
Please, don't flatter yourself. Don't for one second think that anything you do by your "ethics" is justified more than what I do by mine. We have something called law, and these are the rules which we've woven together based on the common interests of all. You're just trying to push your (rather childish idealist) view onto others without any argument, so you use the ridiculous "ethics" card. That's another word for "duuh I don't know what to say but it doesn't like 'feel' right", if you're dumb, and if yo
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But they didn't. Reframeit is the one who went to Google. Reframeit is the one who asked them to look their site (thus explaining the registrations coming from google employees).
And how many employees does Reframeit even have? One or two? Shouldn't it be natural for Google to simply assume that those one or two guys who came to them and asked them to take a look at their site -- simply wanted to get a job at Google?
Li
Reframelt (Score:2)
Reframelt?? I was wondering what Google was going to do with snow-melt.
Evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article doesn't have any evidence. Low-res screenshots with a few arrows aren't convincing, even if they did look alike. If you're writing an online annotation solution, it's quite probable it will look something like your competitor's product (and like a few other things in sidebars).
As for the user registrations: if none of the Reframe It employees have registered with Google to check out Sidewiki, they're stupid.
Trying to hire off a lead engineer? I'd consider that a compliment, for the engineer as well as for the company. And he refused, didn't he?
Furthermore, the article states clearly that the Reframe It CEO "doesn't want to sue Google," but rather, "By going public, Fishkin is hoping to get his story out there and see what happens next." The whining, cowardly 'see what sticks' - approach to competitiveness.
So what? (Score:2)
Software patents or no software patents? can't have it both ways.
If you don't want patents then copying of ideas will happen. It seems like a pretty obvious idea anyway.
Oh, oh, I know this one! (Score:4, Interesting)
WTF does "suspicious user registrations by Google employees" supposed to mean? Google has over 22,000 full-time employees (who knows how many part-time). I'm willing to bet that a decent percentage of them are web savvy because...well..that's what they do. Also, how do they know that certain registrations are Google employees? Probably because they users' email was @google.com. So, let's see if I have this straight, Google decided to steal this startups (fairly obvious) idea and couldn't be bothered to at least hide it by using gmail.com and not google.com? Or maybe Yahoo! or Hotmail. Right...
As for the interface. I did RTFA and they mentioned (with picture in a link) that both apps have the same general set of buttons and similarities in their interface. It's a freakin' application that does one simple thing, it annotates web pages It's not an application that say, allows you to edit 3D objects and has a bajillion buttons (witness Blender). That's a couple of buttons and a couple of textboxes. Oh, and as to how the button arrangements are similar: the cancel button and the submit buttons are side-by-side, with the cancel on the left. Someone call the police! That's a smokin' gun right there!
I'm not saying that Google didn't steal this app, but everything so far is circumstantial at best.
Re:Oh, oh, I know this one! (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF does "suspicious user registrations by Google employees" supposed to mean? Google has over 22,000 full-time employees (who knows how many part-time). I'm willing to bet that a decent percentage of them are web savvy because...well..that's what they do.
Exactly. If Google employees were not registering for all sorts of new services I'd almost be concerned!
Also, how do they know that certain registrations are Google employees? Probably because they users' email was @google.com. So, let's see if I have this straight, Google decided to steal this startups (fairly obvious) idea and couldn't be bothered to at least hide it by using gmail.com and not google.com? Or maybe Yahoo! or Hotmail. Right...
Why do they need to hide it? I'd be expecting Google employees to be checking out the competition all the time. You cannot patent an idea, so I can't see quite where the problem is. This is one idea why getting startup funding for stuff that is obvious or easy to copy is so hard!
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"Suspicious registrations" was intended to cast the activity under a veil of guilt. It's completely unfounded because anyone from anywhere can sign-up to a free service. The offer extended to hire the lead engineer was normal business practice. Google recognized a motivated developer who possessed valuable insight and attempted to acquire him. Totally legal. The comments were intended to imply there was a contractual relationship between Google and FramIt where there was none. Without a business relationshi
Re:Oh, oh, I know this one! (Score:5, Funny)
Address Line 1: "I am a Google employee"
Address Line 2: "And I'm going to steal the shit out of this app!"
ZIP Code: "LOLOL"
There's nothing new in this (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously. I'm not the brightest spark in the wire, but I had an idea for this 10 years ago, and even an implementation limited to a small online fan community. It never took off because the community essentially imploded and died. It used some clever JavaScript, that's about all I remember about it. These people have nothing to complain about, this idea has probably been considered by thousands and their implementation just happened to come second in the contest.
Annotea (Score:2, Informative)
A W3C project [w3.org] did something similar to this back in 2001. There was even a Firefox (then Mozilla) plugin [mozdev.org].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annotea [wikipedia.org]
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Right. Mine was far simpler, though on the plus side it didn't need a browser plugin. Technically you shouldn't have been able to get the page's properties like current URL and length, width from a different JavaScript domain. I used some hack to be able to get them, so I'm sure my code wouldn't even be possible today for security reasons.
Those were the days when a test for NS4 was still something you had to do, though not without dread...
Paradoxically funny on Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Day 1: "Patents and copyright are bad. At a stretch they do nothing good for us, but most likely they severly damage creativity and development"
Day 2: "The Evil Consuming Google has just illegally ripped off the product of a small competitor; punish them!"
Shouldn't Google get a medal for saying "up yours" to the copyright and patent system?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RTFA indeed. (Score:3, Informative)
source [eweek.com] Umm.. he doesn't seem to be considering any sort of legal action to me.
Not an original idea (Score:2)
This is no original idea for any intent or purpose.
I have wanted this idea for a very long time, you can see my journal entry about it.
Sometimes I want to write into the text of a webpage, not add comments ontop of it. It would be cool to read the web and add sarcastic notes everywhere for your own personal viewing.
CritLink did this first. (Score:2)
Back in the '90s there was a system called "CritLink" that allowed you to annotate web pages by using their front end at crit.org almost like a proxy (don't bother going there, it's been a domain park for years). A little while later a group with the somewhat incongruous name of "just say no to TV" tried to create a more commercialized and obtrusive variant, and got roundly criticized for "vandalizing" the web (an assertion I found odd, since nobody could see the so-called vandalism unless they signed up fo
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, these guys seem to be complaining of sour grapes if you ask me. It seems like Lunarr had a similar product as well.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
no one can keep track of what everyone else is doing
Google manage it with us though? :)
Re:From the end of the article (Score:5, Informative)
And it's not original. Other people have tired to launch similar products since 1999.
Here's a few of them:
http://www.icomment.com/ [icomment.com]
http://www.purplebunny.com/bbs/index5.php [purplebunny.com]
joeblowanswers.com [slashdot.org]
Fishkin is an idiot for taking this approach without doing proper research. There's nothing they can sue google for.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Except they don't have a valid claim. The idea is not new, and almost every other web annotation product (thats right, there were plenty around before either of these) uses very similar toolbar interfaces. Of course, comparing to one of these other products isn't nearly as cool as comparing it to Google and trying to make a "big evil corporation" vs "little innocent hard-working can-do american-way startup" case.
I produced a paint program for Win 3.11 quite a number of years ago and ZOMG THE PAINT PROGRAM I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But what about all those inventors and creative types. Aren't they entitled to monopolises and control an entire market sector based on the fact that they were the first to file a completely straightforward innovation? Why must they be subject to the same competitive forces as every other field of human endeavour?
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't they entitled to monopolises and control an entire market sector based on the fact that they were the first to file a completely straightforward innovation? Why must they be subject to the same competitive forces as every other field of human endeavour?
Sarcasm? They shouldn't in some contexts. Here it doesn't make sense, in others, ones requiring significant investment in refining the idea, it does.