Is that THE Doug Richard from the Dragons Den? If so, will Rich Martell only be allowed to take the investment if he gets at least the amount he is asking for?

don’t see why he took the site down. could have just told the university to shove off with their complaint.

O man! I wanted the check the site out. Go Doug Richard!

“told the university to shove off with their complaint” yeah and lose a good career prospects and income if the site doesn’t become profitable, however with Doug’s support and global promotion via Techcrunch, my guess is he won’t need the degree all that much.

I think the universities will come off worse here, as will the goverment which is trying to encourage entrepreneurs, not tell them off for doing something that isn’t politically correct.

You can check out the TRUE fitfindr at http://www.fitfindr.com

find your fitness!

Thanks for the advert on this European story, Eric. Search results on your site for one of the most tech-savvy cities in the world – London – gives zero results. Maybe it will one day.

To balance things out, UK users shoud try http://www.nearbygyms.co.uk, which is run by a friend I know on Facebook.

Maybe he wants to graduate ….

This guy should stop messing around, say screw you to the universities, and continue on with his ambition to develop that service. The thought police in Britain can suck it.

It was an advert, but somewhat relative since the names are the same

You are right, we have not reached out to the UK (or any other country other than the US and Canada) as we are a fairly new project that is starting up. We plan to in the future though!

I’ll check out your friend’s site as well!

Actually, this is the Facebook story: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creator-survives-ad-board-the/

[...] by cabalamat on 2010-May-31 From TechCrunch: It looks like Mark Zuckerberg would not have got Facebook going if he’d started it at a British [...]

Maybe the problem was “allowing students to flirt ” or using the University’s name without consent ?

I doubt that the University would have had a problem if it was something that “allowed students to study together”

To problem is that it had something to do with the University period. If this was created like Myspace and did not have the university involved in any manner do you think they would have gave a fuck ?

You all want to blame the University but maybe he should have never involved the Universities name ?
Think of Facebook except not for Harvard only or if it is don’t state it publicly; instead say something like for people to connect that are in a specific area but not using the name of a company/organization which does not consent you using there name.

Poor guy, maybe people who face such things are the ones who succeed, in a few more months he may flunk out of college and turn his business into million dollar company.

http://www.dumblittleblogger.com/

Can’t believe this would happen. Aren’t universities supposed to nurture and support creative thinking! I had to stop my own Ph.D research into online trust dynamics as the Uni and supervisory team I had in the UK just didn’t understand the web at all. I’d recommend rating UCL (and anyone else for that matter) here http://www.pownum.com/university-college-london/

NOW! he has a future of working for Facebook or Twitter! Go dude! hahah

Not a problem. Martell already knows what to do: go along with the restrictions, keep the site running with “milder” content, *GRADUATE,* or maybe “sell” the site [wink, wink] to his private corporation, etc.

The universities’ reaction is not a surprise considering that they are managed by old farts that haven’t a clue….

PS this is great for Martell: the university’s stupidity has provided him with great global advertising!

“FitFinder had, of course, risque content, allowing students to “spot” attractive people in at their college and post a message about them in the hope they’d get a response.”

LOL. Only pasty-faced geeks would think this is an appropriate and effective way to catch a woman’s attention.

How exactly this guy brought the college to disrepute? Did he used its logo? Just asking…

“Aren’t universities supposed to nurture and support creative thinking”

hahahahahahaha! You really believed that? Most of them are about teaching students what to think and not how to think. And then you get a degree (or degrees) to prove you’ve been properly indoctrinated.

‘A worker that never questions is a good worker for the collective’

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/brits-queue-round-the-block-for-the-ipad-at-apples-main-london-store/

Gee, give us a break, I hope this kid won’t be turned down just because of those ‘abnormal’ admins dropping the ban hammer for his site.

The same goes for that Open-Facebook (Diaspora).

Dont just take it down. I will buy the site that way you will have money to pay the fine and money in your pocket too

Give the guy a break UCL. The World is changing

Thanks to this article, now the UCL’s administration itself can be fined for ‘Bringing the College into Disrepute’

UCL has done enormous damage to the international reputation of all British universities with this idiotic decision + it’s UCL’s administrators who deserve to be sacked!

A sad inditement of the problem with the attitude to entrepreneurial ambition in this country, indeed our continent.

There are many other ways that the university could have approached this and they took the least constructive.

Certainly, legally i suspect they have no grounds. So he is then expected to risk his degree.

UCL should, indeed, be ashamed for the approach they have taken, even if their concerns about the site are genuine and rooted in well placed concern for the well being of the majority of students.

[...] UK student fined for popular flirting site – The Zuckerberg story this is not (TechCrunch) [...]

Oh please.

//It looks like Mark Zuckerberg would not have got Facebook going if he’d started it at a British University.

That’s just daft. This was no facebook and you know it. The site was causing offense, so the university said it needed to come down.

Andrew Scott: saddest indictment in your comment is that on your spelling. Don’t be so dramatic, plenty of great entrepreneurial ventures come form Europe. This clearly was never going to be one of them, although I’m sure the publicity won’t hurt.

You two should get a room somewhere. And please, this is not a gay dating site, it’s techcrunch. No more comments. Thank you, the staff.

heard about this the other day, interesting story

I think they should fine the people fining Rich. Doing things like this against popular websites always turns out wrong. They should know that. So they even disrepute the University more willingly than Rich did.

Iit is likely that there are specific conditions / permissions that need to be met for the University to allow the site such as them remaining intellectual property owners because the site was created while the guy was still attending.
This of course will be under the guise of ‘helping the student to survive the cut-throat world of business’ but the cynic in me says the Uni want’s a slice of the pie. It’s unclear whether there was any specific affiliation with the University except that the guy went there.
As for the comparison to Facebook… this is exactly how it started. A student had an idea and went for it, can you even remember the first version of Facebook? While we may not be getting the whole story, I would hope the University would have provided reasoning behind the ban / fine and helped the guy to correct the areas deemed to be ‘inappropriate’ and causing ‘disrepute’.
As soon as the guy graduates though… keep and eye on that URL

This is not Facebook which started with an ostensibly sensible and work related purpose and morfed into the worlds biggest time waster before Mark Z FINALLY revealed his big top secret plan to take over the world when it was just too late.

This is a shallow publicity seeking attempt at getting publicity that is likely to objectify both men and women and it is not at all surprising that the University that it comes out of is uneasy about it. Nor is it surprising that the failed American dragon Doug Richards still smarting from being kicked off the show for not investing, in a desparate attempt to raise his personal profile attempts to step in and support the ‘poor entrepreneur’. With a string of other failed businesses to his name the poor man deserves a hit or some more publicity at someone elses expense but this probably wont be the thing that turns him into a proper entrepreneur.

Is it just me or is this all too sleazy?

[...] UK student fined for popular flirting site – The Zuckerberg story … [...]

No doubt there is a pair of well-chinned twins somewhere thinking this guy could build them a website…

Write to the UCL board of governors and tell them…

Universities will probably die down in near future. We will get education from public libraries, Wikipedias, web pages and You Tube. Students will just need to pass exams from independent testing facility and companies will hire based on these tests. Professors should start thinking about their future and learn some skills otherwise they may end up in petrol stations.

Why did he take the site down? he’s already in final year, he would have changed the structure with mild content, graduate, and then go back to square one -rather unfortunate

It’s a real shame that thefitfinder is down but I’ve found a pretty cool alternative called http://www.spotacutie.co.uk which even allows pictures!

You are right, we have not reached out to the UK (or any other country other than the US and Canada) as we are a fairly new project that is starting up. We plan to in the future though!

http://www.imlikingyou.com – that’s a growing site that everyone’s turning to

I had to stop my own Ph.D research into online trust dynamics as the Uni
and supervisory team I had in the UK just didn’t understand the web at
all. I’d recommend rating UCL (and anyone else for that matter)  Jogos para celular – Download filmes