A slap fight over an awful trademark.
Couldn't upvote your comment enough.
WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
71–80 of 145 posts
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#72As my good friend (a lawyer) says... There are three sides to every argument. Your side, my side, and the truth.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#73A slap fight over an awful trademark.
Seriously, I read both articles, and you put a gun in my head, and I'd tell you I still can't tell you the names of these 2 apps. Who's where? Who's here? Where's Waldo? Who cares? Such generic names, no branding.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#74Reading between the lines given the complete lack of similarity between the names, it seems to me you are grasping at straws because your own business model is not viable. If I were an investor, I would really question the sustainability of your startup given you are having to use vc money to shut down competitors as opposed to building constructively a sustainable business. Just my 2 cents.
Um, WhosHere has over 5 million downloads I don't think they asked them to change their name to save their business model.
Since when has number of free downloads in the app store been a measure of business model viability? The fact is they are pursuing destructive means to grow their business, as an investor I would much prefer to have founders who were investing my monies in a constructive way especially given the generic and dissimilar app names. I mean how good a product do they have if they feel that the name of their competitors app is having such a material impact on their business?
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, I think you're mistaken. Any dilution of a trademark invites further dilution. IANAL either, but you've made some very strong statements here, and I think they're based on a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of how trademarks work.
I don't agree. It's not dilution if you give permission; the company printing "Kleenex" on kleenex boxes is not diluting the trademark. They have permission to use the trademark in the course of their business relationship. But just so we're not arguing about the specifics of trademark law: I think you should throw away all your legal rights to a trademark if retaining those rights means you have to be a bad person.…
> I think you should throw away all your legal rights to a trademark if retaining those rights means you have to be a bad person.
That's noble, but bad for business. When you have to make a tough call like this at the helm of your own company, if you come from the heart (like that attitude), you're going to lose. It's unfortunate that the world has developed the way it has, but it's also just about impossible for a tactical shift at this point: heart has no place in business, and those who can successfully use their heart in business had to be very, very careful in how they did so. And they weren't always the cleanest, either.
I appreciate your honesty and your position here, but "that just isn't the way business works". You'll get taken advantage of, thinking like that, because not everybody has the same heart you do. Sucks, but is.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#76Clearly, no one wins from this ridiculous exchange. All parties involved need to man up, get in a boardroom and bang out a deal.
Prior to that, they should both delete these posts and same themselves further embarrassment.
Agreements are hard to make sometimes, and compromise sucks, but the ramifications of spending time on crap like this instead of building your business is massive.
Best of luck to both parties, here's hoping they can put the egos aside long enough to do some business.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#77Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#78Look, both your team and the other fellow involved in your dispute are in the wrong. And by wrong, I mean that you're both shaking your proverbial gender-specific parts around a crowded street, shouting about who's part is bigger, and trying to get the passersby to agree with your side or his. No. One. Cares. Put your shit away and handle this like men. Either reconcile or go to war, i.e. court. Just stop acting like…
These guys were being dragged through the mud in public and they got their side of the story out there.
Are you really objecting to that? If it pains you to read it, I'd suggest not clicking.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#79apparently according to Brian he has an obscene trust fund, so why didnt he lawyer up. Perhpas the mileage HN could bring + bad press he can bring about to a competitor was more enticing? https://whoshere.zendesk.com/attachments/token/v4qbuvns0xkik...
These emails are so strange. The tone taken by both parties is just so...unbelievable. For example, Brian's opening salvo "Neither of these options are remotely acceptable to me. It is also offensive to me that you would think my time was only worth $100/hr, considering I turn down requests offering 4 times that rate regularly." Seriously, "regularly" turning down offers for work at a rate of over $400/hr? And also,…
I love how he went to them in the beginning to port their app, listed WhosHere in the search keywords for his app and then acts like these guys appeared out of nowhere to blindsided him.
I'm not sure how strong the merits for the trademark case are but I got no sympathy for this guy.
Re: WhosHere's response to Brian Hamachek/Who's Near Me
#80I'm siding with WhosHere on this one (although it doesn't matter). Here's why. First, they asked Brian to change the name from "Who's Near Me" to something else, and he apparently agreed to, but his rebranding was to "WNM (Who's Near Me) Live" which is basically the same thing except that "Who's Near Me" is written smaller and acronym-ized in the brand. But it's still the same name. Second, a lot of people are talkin…
> I'm tired of the fake arrogance in C.S. culture
I thought the same thing when the opening sentence of his blog post mentioned he had been coded since age 7. I have no reason to believe or not believe that point. But I don't see how that has anything to do with the problem he was about to outline in his blog. Apparently he has a huge trust fund... he could have opened with that.
But I'm still in the "they're generic enough that this shouldn't be a problem" camp.