{"id":2327,"date":"2008-04-09T07:43:48","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T12:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=2327"},"modified":"2008-04-09T07:43:48","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T12:43:48","slug":"google-afraid-of-looking-like-a-bully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/04\/09\/google-afraid-of-looking-like-a-bully\/","title":{"rendered":"Google: Afraid of looking like a bully?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So after much hullabaloo and rejoicing over the launch of its Amazon-style “cloud computing” service, Google decided to take down<\/a> the first app build to run on that service, a collaborative workspace called Huddlechat. Why? Apparently some<\/a> people thought<\/a> it was a ripoff<\/a> of Campfire, a collaborative chat-workspace thing from “software as a service” superstars 37signals. Jason Fried of 37signals told Read\/Write Web that he was flattered, but said he wondered why<\/a> Google “stooped so low” as to “basically copy it feature for feature, layout for layout.”<\/p>\n

I have to say I’m with Ethank Kaplan of blackrimglasses on this one: He calls the “lynch mobbing” over a few similarities<\/a> “retarded” (although I think he means “developmentally delayed”). Did Huddlechat look like 37signals’ Campfire? I guess so, from the screenshots. I mean, there’s a group IM chat window on the left, with some navigational stuff<\/a> on the right. Is that somehow exclusive to 37signals? Seems to me Google Groups looks a lot like that too, and Yahoo Groups for that matter.<\/p>\n

It seems obvious that Google took the app down because it didn’t want the bad PR of looking like a bully<\/a>, like a big, bad company ripping off someone else’s app to promote its new App Engine (especially since the App Engine has been criticized for taking a “lock-in” style approach). But the whole thing seems a little ridiculous to me. <\/p>\n

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So after much hullabaloo and rejoicing over the launch of its Amazon-style “cloud computing” service, Google decided to take down the first app build to run on that service, a collaborative workspace called Huddlechat. Why? Apparently some people thought it was a ripoff of Campfire, a collaborative chat-workspace thing from “software as a service” superstars … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Google: Afraid of looking like a bully?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}