Cloning sites/software. Whats the big deal?!

I seriously don’t get it. Lately a lot have been doing the rounds of people cloning other people’s ideas. W.T.F. Rather S.F.W!!! I mean, was Wordpress the first ever blogging software created?! I seriously doubt it. Yet most people uses it!

So, was Wibble the first ever group blog? Did Vince and Matthew clone Wibble? Really, who cares! Did Muti rip off Digg or Reddit? Did Amatomu and Afrigator clone Technorati? Surely that NOT relevant AT ALL as what is important at the end of the day is which service is liked and used more and by whom. THAT is what is relevant IMHO. Not who cloned who and how and why. Wibble does not allow me to comment without having to register. M&G’s Thought Leader does! Guess where I will spend my spare minutes…

So Nokia is cloning the iPhone! As far as I am concerned (and I hope that transpired in my previous post) it gives us more choice and/or options. If I don’t like it I go to the “clone”. If it was not for “cloning” sites, we would not evolve at the rate we currently do! (Almost) every clone adds to the functionality of the greater idea and gets better and better. If it does NOT get better, well, then if the developer’s goal was to knock the original he failed miserably! Only if that was his plan… If it was done for different reasons, then you go boy! Clone away!

Cloning web services is an integral part of the internet’s evolution. If you have a problem with it, you should maybe stop and think for a minute… If you are the creator of the cloned product, then boy! you better watch out… There is a lot of pretty talented people out there and you better stay on top of your game, else you’ll be (God forbid) knocked out by a clone!

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Tags: cloning, afrigator, amatomu, muti, wibble, thought-leader, wordpress

9 Comments to "Cloning sites/software. Whats the big deal?!"

• qureyoon said: On 08/30/2007 at 11:37 am

  couldn’t agree more …

• Justin Hartman said: On 08/30/2007 at 2:43 pm

  Yip. I’m with you. I’ve had this debate before and the idea that someone wrote something from scratch or “bought” a clone is a stupid argument. It doesn’t change anything and doesn’t make either one less valuable.

• Vincent Maher said: On 08/30/2007 at 3:11 pm

  What I want to know is, how does Wibble even get in the same category as Thought Leader considering that they are two completely different things…

• Neville Newey said: On 08/30/2007 at 4:02 pm

  Spot on Stii. Muti is mostly a “clone” of reddit but also has some inspiration from del.icio.us. Its only a clone in the mechanics though, its not trying to compete in any way with those sites, but rather create a similar site that is more relevant to South Africans or Africans. It also differs in that reddit and digg are commercial sites while muti is not.

  Vince: While I am sure you didnt clone Wibble I am a bit surprized by you saying they are “completely different”, they appear somewhat similar to me, but as Stii says, who cares?

• Vincent Maher said: On 09/01/2007 at 5:28 am

  Neville,

  If you look at the About Us page of Wibble you’ll see the difference immediately:

  When you see the site is working for you, you can opt to host or sponsor your business website with us for a minimal fee. This will autmatically get your company within a public sphere, and the chances of your clients, prospective and future customers finding your site has now doubled, if not tripled. At one click of a button, they can enter your corporate site.
  And advertising with us is another option if you want the world to see what you have on offer.

  You can’t buy your way into Thought Leader, you have to be invited and we’re not trying to sell blogs to people, we’re trying to get the best quality content and we will make money selling advertising at a later stage. Everything knows the integrity of a media house revolves around the question of editorial independence, or the separation of editorial decisions from commercial ones. That’s the difference, right there.

• Vincent Maher - Media in Transition » Innovation vs Progression and the stupid cloning debate said: On 09/01/2007 at 7:37 am

  [...] So I must echo Stii’s sentiments, and Neille Newey’s, when they say Who Cares? [...]

• Neville Newey said: On 09/01/2007 at 5:18 pm

  Vince: Thanks for pointing that out, I see a difference now. I guess superficially they seemed the same as among other things they use the wording “Thought Leader”.

• Global Voices Online » Thought Leader: A South African Editorial Blog said: On 09/26/2007 at 3:31 pm

  [...] asked, “So what's the big deal?“: So, was Wibble the first ever group blog? Did Vince and Matthew clone Wibble? Really, who [...]

• Chris M said: On 10/07/2007 at 2:39 pm

  Cloning another website is fine in my opinion, as long as it isn’t a direct copy, and it has its own special features and things, then I see it not a problem.

  As you said, “It gives more options”, and I agree. After all, look at offline life.. cars for example: VW, Opel, Ford, etc. They are all the same thing, but imagine there was only one? We’d have a windows situation.. only one choice, and not an amazing one at that

  Use fundamentals, but give it your own feel, and give credit where credit is due!

Spit it out!

Filed in: Afrigator, Software Development, Web 2.0, muti.co.za, web development by: Stii