Be careful what you produce for social networks
Interesting story this morning about Facebook having a takedown notice issued to them for the game (Facebook Application) Scrabulous. Apparently this should be a sign that if you write a social networking game or application, you need to stay on this side of the intellectual property line. Mattel has a valid argument in this case. Scrabble has been around for many years now and is nothing new. The two brothers that worked on Scrabulous are very genuine decent guys. I don’t think their intent was to cross that line, but yet what happened is their fb app became very popular really fast.
Now on one hand, you would think that Mattel would be happy in the fact that it may have renewed increased interest in the old board game. Some would say that Mattel is just lawsuit happy and jealous. The fact remains, if you walk on the wrong side of the law, you do tend to get burned.
This should be nothing more than a warning for other application developers. The social networking realm is full of great ideas. It’s a great place to make a living if you can write a decent app that people all love to use. Social Networks such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, and Friendster all have opened up to let people write apps.
Many will say it is a free way to see what sticks to that wall without having to do any of the work. I’ll bet that all of the social networks knew it would be a goldmine. With Facebook taking the plunge, the others have all followed along since the risk was already overcome. They all saw what an interesting format this could be for them.
Technically Speaking, I’ll be in the bay area in the first week in February for a few days. I’ll be attending the Customer Service is the New Marketing summit on the 4th. Drop me a line if you’d like to meet in person. Cat5e
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