Techcrunch misleading about dangers of using "tweet" in names | Hacker News Reader

Techcrunch misleading about dangers of using "tweet" in names

fwd2tweet.com

59 pointsamitu32 comments

Just read the linked article. Yes it might be number 1. But having looked at tweetknots, I'm surprised that twitter haven't thrown the book at them considering that their site is pretty much IDENTICAL to twitter. That really is quite shocking. There's using their logo or similar colours (to show that the site is something to do with twitter) and there's stealing the whole layout (which is what tweetknot seems to have done).

I think tweetknot got off lightly.

Agreed.

Not to justify anything but I really don't think they have any qualifications for any type of graphical design, look at their logo its as if someone went into mspaint with a mouse.

http://tweetknot.com/images/logo4.gif

I'm totally confused - the story as written by TechCrunch, from what I recall, was as follows: "Please stop using "tweet" and other UI elements in your website"

Two things came out of this story for me:

o Twitter is defending the trademark 'tweet'

o Twitter is defending their UI elements.

I found both to be interesting. I'm much less interested in some website called "tweetknot", that indeed does look like a total rip off of twitter.

I have no issues with TechCrunch protecting their source, and found the story to be interesting.

After Amit's post, I'm now left wondering if Twitter is actually protecting their trademarks and design, or if they just targeted an egregious offender and TechCrunch is trying to gin up a trend story. In other words, I currently know nothing more about Twitter's policies and tactics than I did prior to the TechCrunch story.

That's what I got from it.

If I were in Techcrunch's shoes, I wouldn't link to tweetknots because I wouldn't want to give press exposure to a site that brazenly copied its design, css & images from Twitter.

I'm a pretty big Techcrunch hater (and the idea of TC refusing to let someone else benefit from drama-mongering is funny), but I think not linking to tweetknots is a defensible decision.

Twitter did buy their images from a stock photo site and they didn't buy the exclusive rights to the image. Everybody can buy the start site image and can run his own site with the same image as background!

Until people stop voting up techcrunch crap it won't stop.

Amit, Great and to the point writeup. Lets see what techcrunch have to say on this.

We were protecting a source. End of story. The majority of the time tipsters do not want to be named when there's a possibility they could be retaliated against (as is the case on platforms like Twitter, iPhone, etc).

What a cop out. This wasn't just a "source" who gave you a tip. The source was the story.

Without identifying the source, you end up with a crappy one-sided post. And without even bothering to critically examine the source's claim (that they were being hassled specifically for using the word "tweet") you end up with a post that isn't even accurate and that you've now had to add two update update to bring it back in line with reality. End of story.

Having seen the site, I think it's obvious to everyone that using the word "tweet" was the least of its IP transgressions.

I'm no big defended of "old media," but there's a reason you don't see newspaper stories mysteriously missing the "Who?" of the story.

A third party has now identified the company in question.

Presumably, if reporting the company name would have been enough to burn the source, the source is now burnt.

Can't TC now update the story in place with the missing details, to correct the misimpressions given by the initial reporting?

I love it when TechCrunch plays the journalism card. When they want to run a one-sided story with no attribution, they're Woodward and Bernstein. When they're getting called on conflicts of interest, they're Arrington's blog.

I don't see the part where they "stole" it. They just didn't mention tweetknot by name. I'm not a TC fan at all, but I think you need to back up your accusations a little better.

How is not mentioning both the primary source AND the site in question, not stealing?

Show me where I can see this story on Tweetknot's site, and then I'll agree with you that it's stealing.

Otherwise, it's just a lack of attribution which is pretty normal when writing stories.

You're missing the point entirely. The story wasn't STOLEN. It doesn't exist at all.

TC wants a dramatic story. And the only way to make it credible is to hide what they are talking about. Once the site in question was revealed, their article became laughable.

TC intentionally didn't reveal their source because it would have undermined the outlandish assertion they wanted to make. As always, TC tried their best to make a story out of nothing.. Link bait.

I call it stealing because if I come and tell you a story and you publish it, without any attribution at all, then its almost stolen. Its quite gray area, but not something I would consider ethical.

I just noticed that the title of this thread has now been changed from one that accuses Techcrunch of stealing a story to the one that blame it of misleading. Unfortunately, it's still not the Techcrunch post but the title of this thread that is misleading.

As much as I dislike Techcrunch, it didn't mislead anyone in the story. It just didn't disclose the name of a website owner that shamelessly ripped the hell off Twitter and instead chose to refer him as a 'third party developer'.

In a way, Techcrunch is doing you a favor by maintaining anonymity.

Edit: The title of this thread seems to be a work-in-progress. changing every other while. The original title was: Techcrunch steals story from tweetknot

This is just stupid. I'm usually fine with the TechCrunch criticism — frankly, we deserve it sometimes. But this was about protecting a source.

Oftentimes when we receive information like this we won't reveal the source unless we're given explicit permission to do so. This is especially important when an application or service is running on a platform they don't control, like the iPhone or Twitter, because the informant stands the risk of retaliation.

I agree that the Tweetknot site design is derivative, but that wasn't the point of the story in the first place. What is important is the fact that Twitter is changing its stance with regard to the use of words like 'Twitter' and 'Tweet'. In fact, Twitter just wrote a blog post about it: http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html

The fact that Tweetknot is extremely derivative is crucial to the story.

If Twitter had pressured a more unique, independent product about using "Tweet" or "Twitter", one might reasonably draw the conclusion that their goal is really to protect the terms "Tweet" and "Twitter."

But when Twitter attacks Tweetknot through this charge, the most obvious explanation is that they have a particular problem with Tweetknot's general (in my opinion) rip-off of Twitter's aesthetic, and they're using "Tweet" as an initial concrete and legally solid means by which to force Tweetknot to stop copying Twitter. I do not see any evidence that Twitter is going to start going after people who are using their trademarks with unique and useful products and services.

The blog post you linked delineates this policy from the horse's mouth. Your original article, on the other hand, obscured Twitter's intentions in order to present a more compelling and alarming story. In retrospect, given how derivative Tweetknot was, Twitter's email looks absolutely reasonable and makes their intentions totally clear.

(Reference: original TC story -- http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/01/twitter-grows-uncomfort...)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're also trying to drum up traffic for fwd2tweet.com, which is an interesting idea.

:-)

I considered blogging it, and well my blog runs on gitology (http://www.amitu.com/gitology/) that I developed, required me to create a new post, git commit it, git push it, the git pull it on my webserver.

fwd2tweet.com does help you write a quick "long" tweet as easily as writing a mail to a friend.

TechCrunch spews forth a non-story on a non-issue and folks act as if this isn't business as usual. Next.

Amitu, is it possible that tweetknots is more than just your 'friends'?

Not saying that you are, mind you. Simply asking for clarification. Because if you're part of the team that founded the site and you don't disclose it, that would be really unethical.

Nopes, just friends. Used to work with me in a company I worked two years ago.

stealing? seriously? Just because they didn’t link to the site they were reporting about? looks like someone is hopelessly desperate for publicity.

The way I look at this story is: there are so many websites which have 'tweet' in their domains on the web.

Techcrunch may not get the story from tweetknot. But, from somewhere else maybe. So, we should not think that this story is true until someone could actually prove this.

TC is slow-playing the story. By being incomplete, they get one trumped-up story (with inlinks and comment thread) that makes it looks like Twitter is being aggressive.

A day or two later, they reveal the startup that got the letter, and get a second storyline about how that startup went over the line in its mimicry of Twitter.

Commentary like this in the meantime only heightens the number of contentious angles they can play. Maybe they'll get a third story out of it: "defending our honor!"

Twitter does not need to throw the book at them. It will never take off

If you go see tweetknot.com, it resembles twitter a lot

So, if you are a short messaging service, you can only use certain colors as your background?

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