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What'll be interesting is if the value of that 'killer' domain name is completely wiped out by their antics, if and when somebody buys it off them when they're inevitably forced out of business.
looking forward to your next post on retweet..
As you may remember, about one and a half year ago about the same thing happened to me with ReadBurner, beeing copied by RSSMeme and others. I personally had not so much against the clones, since competition is a good motivator.
The problem is, that it's not really hard to build the first iteration of these aggregators. The hard part is to keep pushing it into the right direction and to keep innovating (one part where both ReadBurner & RSSMeme failed, otherwise they should be in that space today).
Let them fight it out.
I believe that ultimativley the innovator and thought leader will win over the copy cat.
Of course we all know that this is not always the case (eg. Apple vs MS) ;-)
Twitturly http://twitturly.com was around many months before Tweetmeme. While it seems Tweetmeme is able to provide better quality links and has an overall better execution of the idea, in my mind (knowing of Twitturly first) they copied Twitturly.
TweetMeme was around way before twitturly, if you look at the date of this original coverage for TweetMeme -> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/28/the-killer... it launched in January 2008
But it only become popular when we revisited it in February this year, so you can be forgiven for thinking that :)
Also I'm not sure why friendfeed should get credit for liking, how is it different to favoriting something on Flickr or 'loving' something on Last.fm which both precede it?
As for FriendFeed and "like", yes you can favorite/thumbs up/love things all over the Web, so they weren't revolutionary, but their specific use was later copied by others.
LOL
Although it is clearly a rip off, the services will likely leapfrog eachother in features, which is ultimately better for us, the users. Otherwise, TweetMeme would have no competition and could coast along without having to look over their shoulder - what fun is that?
Home (Doesn't appear)
Comedy 8 (offbeat)
Entertainment 6
Gaming 4
Lifestyle 5
Science 3
Sports 7
Technology 1
World&Business 2
Digg and Techmeme are in two different fields. ReTweet and Techmeme are going after the same exact audience with identical needs.
I don't know why I have been following this saga because I have little interest in either company, although the reactions of "commentators" are very interesting. So far the key points I have seen are:
1. Retweet is not original idea, Tweetmeme has already done it. I would say there are few original ideas out there, Google wasn't the first search engine, Gmail wasn't the first online mail provider
2. Retweet actually referenced Tweetmeme in their design competition. I would say that this is probably pretty standard, it would be surprising to imagine that who ever designed Tweetmeme hadn't seen Digg.
3. Retweet used Tweetmeme's code. Pretty dumb to get so blatantly caught - but any developer who hasn't looked at the javascript or css code of some site that had functionality they needed and then copied it is an idiot - you don't need to reinvent the wheel everytime
4. One article on Techcrunch said Retweet was using Tweetmeme's table names. If this was true then it would imply that someone from Tweetmeme has crossed over to the darkside and that is pretty bad
Retweet is obviously a copy of Tweetmeme, but it has probably achieved a lot lot more publicity through all the coverage it has had than it ever would have if it hadn't copied code - I bet it has helped its search rank amazingly! I've heard Nick H speak at a Techcrunch event and he is a smart guy and obviously ready to start some serious innovation with Tweetmeme, it will be that which decides the difference between the two services.
I'll finish this very long reply with my favourite quote, by a film maker named Jim Jarmusch (who I have never heard of). It is film centric, but I think works well with anything:
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”
Dirty Andy: "Below is the list of menu items from Tweetmeme and the number signifies their position on Digg - Tweetmeme is as big a rip off of Digg.
Home (Doesn't appear)
Comedy 8 (offbeat)
Entertainment 6
Gaming 4
Lifestyle 5
Science 3
Sports 7
Technology 1
World&Business 2"