You Decide: Should Reframe It Sue Google?
About a year ago, Reframe It launched a product that allowed web users to add public (or private) comments on any part of any website, using a side pane in the browser. According to the users’ choice, the comments would be available for later visitors to that website to see and respond to.
Six weeks ago, Google launched SideWiki which . . . does the same thing (without the privacy options). A coincidence? Possibly. But Reframe It co-founder and CEO Bobby Fishkin believes the similarities extend beyond just the ideas for the products. He tells eWEEK that even the layout of the buttons of the two services is strikingly similar.
And the evidence he offers goes deeper:
- A Reframe It board member recommended the service to a Google exec in July 2008
- Within a few months, at least six Google employees registered for the service.
- Days before Sidewiki’s launch, Google tried to hire Reframe It co-founder and lead engineer Ben Taitelbaum.
Of course, all we have for for all this is Fishkin’s word (though I assume Taitelbaum and the board member would testify as well). Fishkin says Reframe It has a patent pending—and the law says they can amend that application, including to specifically cover the aspects they think Google might be copying. Once the patent is officially issued, they can sue for infringement.
On Google Watch, eWEEK reporter Clint Boulton assembled the side-by-side comparison of the two services:
Reframe It Vs. Google Sidewiki –
Naturally, neither Reframe It nor Sidewiki can claim to be the first web annotation service. However, depending on exactly what their patent will cover, Reframe It may still be able to claim Google violates their patent. (However, at present Reframe It is focusing on launching its 2.0 version, and couldn’t take the distraction, Fishkin says.)
What do you think? Should Reframe It sue Google once it’s patent is issued? Or is this just a coincidence?
How Quickly the Rumors Fall
Seems like just yesterday that the Telegraph was reporting that Twitter was considering the introduction of video tweets into its playbook (actually it was just yesterday). Interesting and scary thought all at once (honestly, do you need to actually see some of the folks who pass along their nuggets of 140 character wisdom?). So while it makes for a nice article and creates the some speculation, what was actually given to the folks at Mashable was even more important. High atop Mt. Twitter the story was given ‘the biz’ by The Biz as an official thumbs down was offered to the rumor. Biz speaks, Mashable reports.
We commented a few hours ago on a claim in the Telegraph newspaper that Twitter is considering the addition of video to the service, and expressed skepticism about the report. That skepticism seems well-founded, as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone replied to our inquiries today by email, essentially debunking the article’s premise:
Haven’t read the piece but no video hosting. 140 characters of text including spaces. You know the drill!
Personally, I breathed a sigh of relief on this one. Twitter and the rest of the world hasn’t yet figured out the 140 text piece of it with search, revenue and any other business considerations you can come up with. At this point in time introducing something like a video offering might serve as more of a distraction than a value add.
Now having said that we should let you know that Mashable’s Pete Cashmore (great Internet marketing name btw) did offer his thoughts on the “what ifs?” and “woulda, shoulda, coulda’s” of video and Twitter with the following.
That said, Twitter does lose out when it comes to multimedia: adding in-line thumbnails for images and videos (even if that content is hosted on 3rd party sites) would make for a much richer experience that could match Facebook’s news feed for image and video sharing.
Aw, Pete, you had to bring up that pesky Facebook thing didn’t you 
? There will always be the opportunity for each service to be more like the other and it will keep us all busy in between the time we are logged in to Facebook and Twitter.
So would you like to see video and Twitter as one without the third party assist?
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Yahoo: Pay No Attention to the 10 Year Search Deal: Look at What’s New on Delicious!
Not to be all Wizard-of-Oz on us, but Yahoo really doesn’t want us to pay attention to the man behind the curtain (Steve Ballmer). No, they want to focus us on their new SERP and their new Delicious search tools and fresh bookmarks.
Don’t you worry—don’t think for one moment that I, the paragon of journalistic integrity, could be distracted so easily from decrying Yahoo’s abdication of control over its search—ooh, shiny emailing and tweeting tools!
So Delicious does have some cool new stuff to show off—and maybe it’s not just a distraction ploy. Maybe it’s a ploy to remind us that Yahoo can still do cool new stuff. 
Anyway, Delicious has a new search tool to help its users find bookmarks (theirs and others’) more easily. Yahoo says “with advanced timeline and tag filtering controls so that you can search within a given date range or filter the results by tag. We’ve also enhanced the search results page to display rich content including YouTube videos with inline playback, Flickr images, and Yelp local data when applicable.”
Delicious has also added a feature to highlight new and popular bookmarks—but not on the Delicious site. The Fresh Bookmarks tab on the homepage features up-and-coming bookmarks (gee, no other social site has ever done that )—the bookmarks that are most popular on Twitter (as opposed to the most popular bookmarks on Delicious, which are under the Popular Bookmarks tab).
On this new feature yesterday, the Delicious blog quotes Wired, who touted the predecessor app, TweetNews, as possibly “the best mashup we’ve ever seen.” Hopefully the Delicious version gets the same positive reception.
Finally, Delicious also added more social features to the add bookmark page. You can add recipients in the Send field—and get the option to email or even tweet bookmarks.
Delicious looks to be doing a good job of adapting to the most popular social site with the media today, instead of decrying Twitter as a poor man’s competitor.
What do you think? Will these new features be enough to keep Delicious users happy—and relying on Delicious? Or does this just push more users toward Twitter?
