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Comment by zemote | Hacker News Reader

This is almost an exact replica of my startup http://edmodo.com which is completely free for multiple groups (eduset charges for more than 1 group), and already has decent traction with 87,000 registered users.

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Jeff, I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed you chose to say that it is an "exact replica" publicly. As I said in my email to you some time ago, I had the idea for Eduset having never even heard of Edmodo, and only discovered Edmodo about halfway through the process of building Eduset. While I was certainly stunned at how similar the ideas were, I decided that the classroom microblogging space was big enough for more than one player, so I continued work.

Further, for the record, the inspiration for Eduset came from Pownce. When I first tried the Pownce closed beta, I realized that its model would apply perfectly to the classroom setting.

Edit: Also, note that Edmodo is planning to add paid features this year (http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/06/07/thank-you-for-a-succes...)

Edit 2: I'd like to emphasize again that I sent Jeff a long and detailed email about this exactly 3 weeks ago, containing everything I've said here and more. He confirmed to me that he received the email, but has yet to reply. For him to then take the debate public here, without bothering to talk to me personally, is unnecessary and absurd.

I actually have proof you signed up for Edmodo in October or November of last year, so you new about Edmodo almost a year ago. The classroom micro-blogging space may be big enough for two but we are more motivated than ever to own the educational micro-blogging space which we are already doing a very good job at it. I'm just letting the Hacker News users the similarities between your service and ours and ours is free unlike yours and we have a business model too :) We put our money where our mouth is and making the Education community a better place by offering the best free micro-blogging we can for individual teachers.

If you want to get into proof, here is proof that I got the inspiration for Eduset exactly a year earlier than I signed up for Edmodo: http://grab.by/5A5

Also, it is painful for me to see you painting me as a villain here. Why are you implying that I'm not "putting my money where my mouth is", that I'm not also trying to make the education community a better place? As I said above, you are planning to launch paid features, so please don't try to make it seem like I am doing teachers a disservice by charging a small amount.

By charging for your service, you're actually rather protecting your users — a free service is much more likely to suddenly disappear from the face of the web when it's too far into the red. And certainly, that wouldn't be appreciated by those users who have come to rely on the service. Maybe you should even put that into your marketing copy: it not being free is a feature.

I believe you should keep this thread going. It might get you covered on Techcrunch :)

Seriously - this is rather interesting. Looks like proof of the whole "there are no new ideas, only execution" maxim.

I agree, silly rants like this is absurd and really doesn't do any good and is not productive. Execution is key. I'm little passionate about my startup and that is why I replied. I never said he stole our idea. I said "almost" exact replica. Facebook borrows from twitter, eduset borrows from pownce, we borrow from twitter, facebook, friendfeed.

Yes, we can co-exist as healthy competitors. I'm usually not one for silly rants, my passion has gotten the better of me tonight. Edmodo, Eduset, and The Education Community as a whole is better served by us putting our energies into execution of our startups.

That's great to hear. I'm glad we've put this behind us.

Based on what you've written here, as an outsider: Your audience is not the HN audience. What people think of you here in terms of copying is completely irrelevant. (Also, copying is fine. Everybody copies, sometimes entire business ideas.) Your customers, who I assume are school administrators and teachers don't care which came first or who copies who. If you look at school admins, they probably don't even care about features, to win them over you need a good salesmen. Also, X always pointing out how he came first and his is better then Y is just good marketing, because whenever people see Y they also see X and are more likely to compare the two. Saying X is better is hardly evil, it's just marketing. (Remember the Apple vs. PC ads? Remember the news about how Microsoft wants to build stores right next to Apple stores? You're living it.) In the end I think you will need to sell packages to schools to make real money, and in that case it's not even going to be about features but about a good salesman with connections. That's what you get for making a product aimed at the goverment. Cheers.

Still doesn't mean we aren't going to compete and rest on our laurels :)

I agree; its not the idea that makes the product (or service) but rather the execution. Jeff should simply concentrate his time on bettering his own venture. Consider a similar venture nothing short of flattery.

I wish both Eduset.com and Edmodo.com the best of luck with their ventures - let the execution begin.

Jeff, I understand that you're passionate about Edmodo, just as I'm passionate about Eduset. And it's very true that all startups are derivative to a certain extent. However, I have to correct you: you did say I stole your idea. Here's your tweet from September 2nd:

"Is being copied (i mean blatantly ripped off) the sincerest form of flattery?" http://twitter.com/zemote/status/3715106709

If you're willing now to take this back, then I think that we can happily coexist as healthy competitors.

Jeff, Will has already explained to you multiple times in both in public and private that Eduset is not a copy of Edmodo and both products were developed independently of each other. Kindly lay the fuck off and quit advertising your startup at every mention of Eduset.

Will and I both developed a teacher classroom web interface independently of each other. The difference is that I didn't lay claim to the idea and become a dick about it.

BTW, your comparison of Eduset and Edmodo is like a comparison between the Zune and the iPod. You might as well accuse Classleaf of similar 'exact replica'-tion.

Moreover, even if he did copy the idea... who cares? Ideas are a dime a dozen... whoever executes best will win... assuming there is a winner. Seems like a space that several players could comfortably operate for quite a while.

Also, accusing someone of copying your site is rather ballsy considering that both sites look like repurposed Facebook clones. At least the eduset guy changed the color from blue to green. ;)

(Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but you don't exactly have a unique style that got ripped off.)

Did a quick search for Eduset. From the blogs I have read this dude Jeff just spams "Rip off of Edmodo", "Not impressed", etc. everytime somebody posts about this thing.

I have no relationship to either, but pretty scummy practice IMO.

Behaviour like that isn't going to help either startup.

SchoolRack has been around for years and is doing ~10K daily visitors. Both of these services do a lot of what we do... We're not bitching! :) Bring on the competition! The Education space needs some attention.

http://www.quantcast.com/schoolrack.com

Whalesalad, totally agree, Education startups are lacking. I'm very impressed with the new Schoolrack release. Hey we are getting close to you guys :) http://www.quantcast.com/edmodo.com

After having tried it, edmodo sucks balls. Huge, bloody, salty, donkey balls.

I guess being first mover/original isn't the best thing.

Stop spamming your lame little startup every time a superior competitor pops up.

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