copycats
Startup copycats: You’re doing it wrong.
thenextweb.com
Yesterday I was having brunch with another Italian entrepreneur in San Francisco. He said he was thinking about going back to Italy to create startup copycats, that spurred an interesting conversation and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. I’m not going to debate on the morality of it,...
Why ‘going global’ makes no sense for China’s social networks, for now
thenextweb.com
They may only ‘live’ in one country, but China’s social network giants have no need to turn their attention to taking down Twitter and Facebook, at least until they get their own domestic houses fully in order. Despite the common conception, there’s little doubt that, these days, China’s so-called ‘clones’...
Samsung takes another page from Apple’s playbook: increase margins
www.bgr.com
Apple has argued on multiple occasions that Samsung builds mobile products that ”blatantly imitate the appearance of Apple’s products to capitalize on Apple’s success.” Courts seem to disagree for the most part, with only a pair of injunctions having been issued despite dozens of complaints Apple has filed around the...
Cloning Successful Startups
www.avc.com
Jeff Leventhal, the CEO of our portfolio company WorkMarket, emailed me yesterday. He said: i would love to see an avc post about copycats like samwer bros. what do u think of this form of entrepreneurs, etc? I looked back over my archives and I guess I've never addressed this...
The Best Patent Rejection You'll Ever See (Featuring Borat)
www.theatlantic.com
It is not often that United States Patent and Trademark Office makes a funny. The understaffed and oft-maligned agency is tasked with helping inventors capture the value that they create while stopping copycats and other parasites from patenting things that already exist. They are not know for a sense of...
Chinese iPhone owners more "elegant and romantic" than their Android counterparts
thenextweb.com
iPhone owners might not have reputations as Romeos or Casanovas, but a new report out of China suggests that they are at least more romantic than Android owners. Dianping.com, often referred to as the Chinese Yelp, has revealed that users of its mobile app for iPhone tend to prefer a more...
Workana hopes to introduce Latin America to online freelancing
thenextweb.com
Workana is an online marketplace for remote work based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As we reported, the startup participated in the accelerator NXTP Labs, which gave it the opportunity to pitch its project to investors as part of its latest Demo Day. Workana’s approach has a lot in common with Freelancer,...
Now Wrapp goes head to head with Samwers in Germany
gigaom.com
Social gifting service Wrapp is going where few others have succeeded before — by taking on the controversial Samwer brothers on their home territory. Wrapp, which allows people to send each other gifts and gift cards through Facebook, announced on Wednesday that it was now live in Germany, the latest...
Brazilian Etsy Elo7 buys Argentine competitor Bixti to expand across Latin America
thenextweb.com
Elo7 has acquired its Argentine counterpart Bixti and opened an office in Argentina, the Brazilian startup announced today. Both companies are Etsy copycats that offer marketplaces for handcrafted products. For Elo7, the deal is a way to start its regional expansion, while acqui-hiring talent. As part of the transaction Bixti...
With Crazy-Popular iPhone App, Changba Wins While It's Singing
pandodaily.com
Zuitao, a company that owns a karaoke app that is taking China by storm, has only about 15 people on its team, and they occupy just one modest room in a Beijing office tower. According to a rough calculation, that means each staffer is responsible for hundreds of thousands of...
Samsung Chief Product Officer talks patent wars and rectangles
9to5mac.com
After execs from both companies couldn’t come to terms in an attempt to settle, both Samsung and Apple take the stand in a San Jose, California court room this week. Apple and Samsung will face off on each other for allegedly stealing each other’s patents. Apple also claims that Samsung’s Galaxy...
Brainstorming site Tricider falls victim to outrageous clone
gigaom.com
German startups may have a reputation for cloning others (thanks, Rocket), but sometimes it goes the other way — and one Berlin startup has just been copied in a particularly egregious way. It’s enough to make you laugh, unless you’re the proprietors of brainstorming site Tricider. Somebody in Russia has...
Fab.com Makes First Overseas Acquisition in Germany
blogs.wsj.com
Design e-commerce site Fab.com Inc. is going global, expanding into Europe with its first international acquisition. New York-based Fab.com will acquire Germany’s Casacanda GmbH in an all-stock deal valuing the start-up at around $10 million, said a person familiar with the matter. Fab.com Fab.com Chief Executive Jason Goldberg said the...
Walkie talkies are the future of communication, according to TiKL
venturebeat.com
Where much of technology tries to push new ideas into the hands of consumers, TiKL is putting an old stand-by on smartphones: the walkie-talkie. “We created TiKL with the vision of redefining the way we communicate,” said co-founder Zafir Ahmed on stage at the Y Combinator Demo Day today....
YouKu-Tudou Discussions: “The Most Intense I’ve Ever Seen”
pandodaily.com
When I heard about the Youku-Tudou merger last night I immediately thought it could represent one of two things. Either it was another sign that China’s cultural preference against mergers and acquisitions was starting to shift, or it was the Chinese equivalent of Excite@Home. In other words, two much-hyped, money-losing...
Fab.com founders talk UK expansion, global design and mobile growth
www.guardian.co.uk
And why design shouldn't be 'elitist, exclusive and for people in the know'Once upon a time, Amazon and eBay were plucky young dotcoms looking to disrupt the world of traditional, offline commerce. Nowadays, they're the giants for a new generation of startups to take aim at.Fab.com is one of those....
Disney Hopes Brands Are the Best Protection Against Social Gaming Copycats
allthingsd.com
Disney’s next game on Facebook gets its inspiration from its Animal Kingdom Park in Orlando, where 1,700 animals inhabit 500 acres. And because of its strong association with a brand, the game makers are hoping this time the game won’t be as easy to replicate by competitors — unlike what happened...
Apple finally clamps down on app store copycats
www.insidemobileapps.com
While Google’s Android platform may take heat over malware and malicious apps, Apple’s app store hasn’t been without problems either. Although we’ve seen many copycat apps rise to the top of the charts over the past few months, last week Apple took action, removing most of the apps from a developer...
Mobile platform Yodo1 raises $2m to distribute Western games in China, starting with Hero Academy
venturebeat.com
Beijing-based mobile gaming platform Yodo1 announced today that it has received $2 million from ChangYou Fund to “accelerate” distribution of Western iOS and Android titles in the rapidly growing Chinese market. Yodo1′s developer partners include Outfit7 and Digital Chocolate. Along with the funding, it’s also announcing a new agreement with developer...
Being Pissed Off Doesn't Mean You Have A Legal Claim
www.techdirt.com
One of the common themes we see over and over again is people filing lawsuits just because they're upset about something (to a lesser extent, this also applies to DMCA takedowns). We just wrote about Judge Posner's shredding of Apple's patent litigation strategy, noting that just because you're "really annoyed,"...
Sonalight wants to be a Siri that “saves lives”
venturebeat.com
Android users are seemingly suffering without Siri on their phones, so copycats are popping up all over the Android Marketplace. Sonalight, however, promises to not just be an voice-assistance-app, but rather, it believes it will save lives. “I’m from the future, and it’s awesome,” said Sonalight co-founder Spencer Skates...
Birchbox, at 100,000 Subscribers, Hooks Up With Gossip Girl
www.betabeat.com
Ms. Barna, left; Ms. Beauchamp. Hometown heroines Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna are two of the better-known female founders in New York's apparently estrogen-powered tech scene, and yeah, their company Birchbox is pretty girly. So it was fun to see the contrast in the dual announcement this week: the launch...
Brazil's Appies raises seed round to launch dashboard for mobile app developers
thenextweb.com
Appies has closed a seed round from Brazilian fund Trindade Investimentos, the São Paulo-based mobile powerhouse announced today. While values weren’t disclosed, both parties noted that this capital will finance Appies’ dashboard for developers – its beta version is set to launch in a couple of months. As you may remember, Appies...
Samsung Chief Product Officer talks patent wars and rectangles
9to5google.com
After execs from both companies couldn’t come to terms in an attempt to settle, both Samsung and Apple take the stand in a San Jose, California court room this week. Apple and Samsung will face off on each other for allegedly stealing each other’s patents. Apple also claims that Samsung’s Galaxy...
Best Buy: Customers returned Samsung tablets because they thought they were getting iPads
www.bgr.com
Here come some more juicy tidbits from recently unsealed documents tied to the upcoming Apple (AAPL) vs. Samsung (005930) extravaganza! From rejected settlement offers to muscle flexing on both sides, things are starting to heat up in San Jose, California. In the latest round of documents examined by All Things...
LG Optimus Vu review: a 5-inch, pen-enabled phone to take on the Galaxy Note
www.engadget.com
Tech companies are no strangers to the game of follow the leader -- industry imitation is, after all, the sincerest sign of a successful product. In the case of the Galaxy Note, Samsung's phablet wonder has been enjoying some unexpected popularity in markets abroad and even here in the...
Rocket Internet launches three new services in ... Myanmar (yes, really)
thenextweb.com
Last week I highlighted that the recent relaxing of political and social restrictions are opening up once-closed Myanmar as a possible tech market, and already that opportunity is being exploited by none other than Rocket Internet, the German-headquartered Internet business factory. Rocket is no stranger to anyone with a passing interest...
Beware of cheap imitations? Copycat startups deserve media coverage if they’re good enough
thenextweb.com
You can’t beat the real thing. That’s what they say, isn’t it? So much focus is placed on ‘original’, ‘authenticate’ and ‘genuine’, as companies strive to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The power of the brand, for many, is worth more than the product itself, as consumers see the brand...
Xbox 720 leaked documents and legally defining Tetris
arstechnica.com
A variety of gaming news caught our interest last week. The leaked documents showing Microsoft's fantastic plans for an Xbox 720 were by far the most exciting, and our interview with Warren Spector shed some light on the motivations behind Epic Mickey 2. Small-time gaming got a little recognition too,...
This week’s headlines from across Inside Network
www.insidefacebook.com
A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from Feb. 6 to Feb. 12. Inside Mobile Apps Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods. Monday, Feb. 6 Emerging paid iOS apps: Tank Hero, The Lost City and Reckless Racing 2 Jigsaw Mansion 2 brings...
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