Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Many ideas are great but only a few make it to the big time. One such idea was Facebook, another was Connectu, both of which were Harvard social networks started in 2004. The Connectu founders have accused the Facebook founder of stealing their idea and intellectual property. Is it true? Does it matter?
The facts, acccording to plaintiffs Divy Narendra
and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are that they enlisted the help of
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to help them develop Connectu.
However, they claim instead Zuckerberg stole their idea and developed
Facebook instead, beating them to the market by a coule of months.
Zuckerberg and Facebook deny everything of course.
Whether the three Harvard graduates are telling the truth or not is up
to the courts to decide. However, anyone who has brought a website into
existence can attest being first to market by a couple of months does
not guarantee success. Social networking sites are no different.
Classmates.com, one of the first social networking sites, started in
1995 and is very popular with tens of millions of members. However,
Facebook, which started 9 years later, is bigger. Why? Superior
marketing? Better SEO? Better services? Better user experience? Wider
appeal? Probably a combination of all these.
In the world of web publishing, there are few financial barriers to
entry. What makes one site successful with throngs of daily traffic
while another just a deserted web placemark comes down to how
compelling the content is and site developers are at getting the site
known.
In the case of Facebook and Connectu, which both launched within three
months of each other in 2004, it is fairly obvious which site was able
to tap into that indefinable something that creates success. An iPod is
after all a portable music player - it wasn't the first but it is
definitely the most successful.
If Zuckerberg's adversaries win their case, perhaps Facebook could be
made to pay some compensation. Should Facebook be given to Connectu?
Only if you believe that iPod should be given to Creative Labs.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
