The people over at retweet must have asked some freelance programmers to build a “clone” of tweetmeme.

It happens all the time on sites like oDesk, RentACoder, Elance etc…

the freelance programmer in charge of developing the backend code of retweet.com must have modelled the entire functionality on tweetmeme… and in doing so must have named almost everything based on the name “tweetmeme”.

-saurab

The people over at retweet must have asked some freelance programmers to build a “clone” of tweetmeme.

It happens all the time on sites like oDesk, RentACoder, Elance etc…

the freelance programmer in charge of developing the backend code of retweet.com must have modelled the entire functionality… and in doing so must have named almost everything based on the name “tweetmeme”.

-saurab

Here’s how it plays; retweet.com commits some moral outrage -> you write about it -> they use the techcrunch platform to respond saying how great their service is -> people try them out. You’re HELPING THEM. They do not deserve the publicity or the pagerank.

Never mention their name again. Please.

Remeber, we don’t know if the tables are named the same way as the tweetmeme schema, all they have done is named their database after tweetmeme.

They would say tweetmeme is the inspiration for their system… others (Myself included) would say they have copied tweetmeme.

I don’t think they have copied the schema or any internal code though – just the idea and functionality.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting what they have done but the title and content of the article are a bit missleading – there is no evidence that they are *still* using the code, all we have seen is that they have named their database (Not tables) after tweetmeme.

Twitter: dan_jf

How in the world did they get their hands on TweetMeme’s database schema and backend code, if that is the case?!

The error message shows that their database is named “tweetmeme_web”, that’s all.

Not an indication of using their code but a sure indication that the whole project has been based (Ideas copied) on the functionality of tweetmeme.

Competition is good though, and its good to see that Nick has already started to implement new features into tweetmeme.

If you had written the database schema yourself you wouldn’t name the tables with that of your competitor…

Tweetmeme should be sueing Retweet.com – clearly!

Thanks for keeping us updated.

“Imagine that Retweet allowed you to take someone else’s Tweet and pass it off as your own … do you get it now?”

That in itself would not upset me, but the pure fact that they just come along and bluntly copy not only the idea, but also the design, the way the site works, even the artwork up to the tiny Retweet button and the naming of the categories just makes me sick.

I understand that there are cultures where copying a product is a sign of appreciation, and if the guys behind Retweet have such a cultural background than that is a totally different story.

For now i assume they do not. For now, i assume they think that we all are idiots. Because rather than using their brains to invent something new, to at least try to modify an existing service in an intelligent way, to launch with at least one single innovative and new feature, they think they can get away with a cheap copy of something someone else created.

I understand that no one owns an idea completely. I also understand that Nick didn’t invented the first meme tracker ever. I also appreciate a competitive environment because i believe it ultimately results in better products.

What i f”@# hate is, if someone just comes along and takes what you have and put’s it right on his own head.

That’s what Retweet did! Well, the truth is they tried. If you take a close look at both services you will see that Tweetmeme is still way ahead. Nick and his team have some nice features like a live view and channels that were probably not that easy to copy.

Oh and sorry for the rant.