11–20 of 27 posts
Peldi is a class act. He's wrong about one thing, though: "I wish you luck, but not too much" is much older than Obama-- here's a usage from 1932: http://books.google.no/books?id=10wCi1LnRFoC&pg=PA15&...
Too bad you can't link directly to his comment.
Was google a clone of altavista? Was facebook a clone of friendster? Was the ipod a clone of all other mp3 players? Is Mockingbird a clone of Balsamiq? Just copying an idea is fine. And if you do any kind of market research, your essentially figuring out which idea is the most profitable to copy. Its finally all about execution.
Google was a lot different than altavista despite aiming at the same market. That's why I wouldn't use the word clone.
There are a lot of people who made war games a la Risk, but that doesn't mean they use the same rules. If they do that's a clone and it's not a great way to start imho. But if you think you can improve it somehow, or make it different enough that you haven't just slapped a bit of paint on it, then I think those are good and should be encouraged (more competition ^_^).
Very good discussion. Is it software or marketing or the people who wrote it or the community they have grown? The software is Balsamiq btw.
Then I came back to HN to complain about the troll, read your comment and the others here, and promptly turned around and went over to the site again to actually read the comments. And it's true! It was a very good discussion.
My troll filter isn't very sensitive -- I usually give people the benefit of the doubt -- but it unambiguously went off here.
"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery." --Charles Caleb Colton
"Good artists copy great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso
Was google a clone of altavista? Was facebook a clone of friendster? Was the ipod a clone of all other mp3 players? Is Mockingbird a clone of Balsamiq? Just copying an idea is fine. And if you do any kind of market research, your essentially figuring out which idea is the most profitable to copy. Its finally all about execution.
I'd say Google was "a take" on search engines like Altavista, Facebook "a take" on social networks like Friendster. They didn't start as "clones".
Maybe it's just a matter of phrasing but I was surprised by the number of replies like "go ahead, clone it!". Being inspired by, revisiting... are words that sound better to me. Between his decision on cloning and the outsourcing, it doesn't bode well.
What does make sense is a near-clone with a killer feature added. Google was like Altavista, but with results that are actually useful. reddit was just like delicious/popular, but with voting. Myspace was just like Friendster, but with uptime. Cheap/free when the competition is expensive usually counts as a killer feature, but isn't always the most effective way to make a profit.
That's all.
He basically wants to ride on their coattails, and presumably sell a cheaper knockoff.
Which is, I think, rather sleazy.
Making an exact (more or less) clone of a successful product isn't especially unethical to my way of thinking, but it is stupid . The original product has a "head start" in the marketplace and you're almost certainly going to be playing catch-up in terms of market share and (here's the less part of "more or less") features. What does make sense is a near-clone with a killer feature added. Google was like Altavista, b…