Who Invented the Buble?

I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that Icerocket, back in the day, was scraping other blog search engine results and serving them as their own.

Today, I noticed an interesting image next to some of their blog search results.

   

For those that don't recognize this image, it is used at technorati (And icerocket, apparently)  to link to a "link search"; pages where that search result is linked-to. This image helps users follow the conversation, or "who's linking to who?".  Something, blogpulse just revolutionized by doing it differently and better.

Anyways, Icerocket not only ripped off the concept from technorati. They ripped off the image, which is also very similar to Technorati's logo:

Then, I noticed that Jason Calacanis pointed to their tag search today. And also learned the fact that they intend to be relaunching their search engine as a blog search engine. So, now they intend to copy all of the people that have pioneered blog search. Not just their logos and a concept here and there.

Conclusion: From 1,000 feet: I think that icerocket's business practices blow big questionable chunks. And their copy-cat strategy: lame.

So, who did invent the buble? I right clicked to save the image above at icerocket, and noticed that it is called a "buble".  Who named it that? Or was it just a mispelling made by the guy at icerocket that right-clicked-and-saved-it from technorati's website - when mispelling bubble.

Either way, it might be the only original thing Icerocket has ever done.

Comments

[jason]

Couple of things:

1. there are millions of examples of the bubble you are talking about out there. That has represented the comment or message board for years... you can do a google image search and find a ton of them.

http://www.johndilworth.com/images/interface/comment_bubble.gif

http://jeremyjohnsononline.com/skins/jeremyjohnson_v10/images/postTalkBubble.gif

2. I was told by more then one insider that Technorati--and all the blog search engines--have been scraping each other, del.icio.us, pubsub, feedmesh, etc. to build their indexes. It seems to be common practice. However I have no idea if IceRocket was doing this or not.

3. As you're saying Technorati wasn't the first blog search and it won't be the last. Also, given how poorly they are doing right now in terms of performance I'm psyched to see IceRocket--and I hope Yahoo soon--join the party! The more folks who index blogs--and the better they do indexing those blogs--the better it for us publishers! Also, Icerocket is doing a better job wih tags and spam so far (thanks to their smaller index), however I could see their index getting spammed as it gets bigger. They certainly have the second mover advantage at this point. I'm interested to see how Technorat responds... frankly, they should probably start over and reindex the entire blogosphere since the index is so spammed up at this point!

4. I know I might not seem totally objective in this since Mark is an investor in both IceRocket and my company, but we have partnerships with Feedster, Google, Yahoo, and have been trying to do one with Technorati for a while (Dave and I are waiting to meet up). We're search engine agnostic. We want to see all of them do well and bring us traffic.

best j

[mark cuban]

This has got to be some of the dumbest shit i have ever read.

First of all blogs.icerocket.com came about because I wanted to be able to search based on date not relevancy.

Since we were a metasearch engine, we started working with feedster.

When we couldnt come up with a deal that worked with them, we decided to write our own spider.

We then introduced the spider and started to build our index. Its because of this late start that we often dont have as many links in our database. We dont have posts that havent been referenced that are older than our index.

As far as technorati, sure we watch what they do. But we certainly have no desire to copy them.

They seem to be positioning themselves as a portal. Good for them. Good for us. We dont want to be a portal for blogs. We want to be fast, simple means for bloggers and non to search the blogosphere and just as importantly ANY WEBSITE or SOURCE that offers RSS or comparable feeds.

As far as your ridiculous rant on the "buble". If technorati pioneered it , good for them. I dont know if theydid or didnt. We do use things from others. Just like the new window graphic is pretty much standard. Just like we liked the tags. Its not an original idea, but technorati did a good job of getting it outthere first. And just like we didnt invent RSS, we will index and search them as well. Technorati will use tags their way, we will use them and improve on them our way.

As far as your insuation that we are just copying things from everyone, its total bullshit.

We design blogs.icerocket features around the features that I WANT TO USE.

Blogs.icerocket.com is geared not towards bloggers to use as reference in their blogs, although it can easily be used for that. Its designed for businesspeople who want to search for topics, names, products, whatever and see what is being said by anyone who publishes with a compatible post system.

And btw, blogscour.com is just a renaming. blogs.icerocket.com isnt going anywhere. You can get to the same engine from either url.

And btw, saw your reasons for not having tried icerocket and not using it. Something put a stick up your ass re our site. Its unfortunate for you that its still there.

[peter caputa]

Mostly in response to Mark:
I'll try to see past the personal attacks and ferret some truth out of this. You must have missed class when they taught you how to separate personal attacks from public criticism of your company. I'd suggest that it is only dumb to you, because there is truth to it and because it is criticism that you don't want to hear. Of course, I've been known to be wrong and certainly open to hearing any more that you'd like to dish.

1. Define "working with" please...

"Since we were a metasearch engine, we started working with feedster.
When we couldnt come up with a deal that worked with them, we decided to write our own spider."

I thought a lesson was learned back in the day of metasearch, that attribution of the original search index was the appropriate thing to do. I've been told that - that wasn't the case with icerocket.

And that paragraph looks like a clever case of double-speak. "Working with" implies you had a deal. But, you never had a deal, did you? And you weren't just scraping one search engine without permission - were you? A metasearch on top of one search engine. That's novel.

2. What have you done that is unique? That hasn't been done by 4 other people before you?

"As far as your insuation that we are just copying things from everyone, its total bullshit.

We design blogs.icerocket features around the features that I WANT TO USE.

Blogs.icerocket.com is geared not towards bloggers to use as reference in their blogs, although it can easily be used for that. Its designed for businesspeople who want to search for topics, names, products, whatever and see what is being said by anyone who publishes with a compatible post system."

I am not saying that copying what works is a bad idea. I recommend that people learn from what others do that works. Just because YOU WANT IT, doesn't mean that it is original or novel. And tell me what blog search engine isn't designed to help companies/individuals search for "whatever" that is published by a "compatible publishing system" (eg blogging tool). Originality and novelty are for us to decide. So, let's not pretend that icerocket is a pioneer or an innovator in blog search. Or that you get to decide that.

3. You're still talking about portals?

"As far as technorati, sure we watch what they do. But we certainly have no desire to copy them.

They seem to be positioning themselves as a portal. Good for them. Good for us. We dont want to be a portal for blogs. We want to be fast, simple means for bloggers and non to search the blogosphere and just as importantly ANY WEBSITE or SOURCE that offers RSS or comparable feeds."

If you think technorati is a "portal play", that's humorous. Technorati is leveraging the distributed conversation and aggregating it for individuals and COMPANIES to navigate for the purpose of DISCOVERY. Technorati is about implicit social networking and organizing information. That's a bit different than a portal where I can do "things". And it is more powerful than just a search box. Google may have proved that quick searches make money. But, that innovation is last year. Good luck competing against yahoo and google. They'll certainly be applying their "strengths" to this opportunity.

4. Re: the buble. Again, I think you are a bit biased in labelling that ridiculous. Whether there was a comment "BUBBLE" that existed before technorati's bubble or not (Thanks for the links, Jason.), the fact that icerocket ripped off their IMAGE is irrefutable. It is the same size and shape and color. Any graphic designer will tell you that - that is the lamest thing to do to anyone's work.

5. I do appreciate Jason's declaration of lack of bias. If you look at the source code for this post, you'll notice that I wrote that it was interesting that Jason was plugging icerocket TWICE on his blog, without mentioning the possible conflict of interest. I commented-it-out because I figured I'd pick one fight at a time. And I wasn't sure whether Mark was an investor in weblogsinc. Nonetheless, this is extremely interesting given Jason's stand against the Marqui program and other programs where people are paid to give their honest feedback with disclosure. If plugging your advertisers/investors other ventures without a disclaimer (at the expense of their competitors) is editorial integrity, then maybe somebody should reteach me that lesson.

6. In response to Jason's insider information. Yes, other blog search engines scrape (ONCE) other blog search engines results in order to build their index. I've heard this also. However, what I was told that icerocket was doing by more than one source: scraping and serving with no attribution is a bit different. If that is not the case, I'd be more than happy to hear otherwise. Again, this is a rumor. And i claimed it was unsubstantiated. Still do. I wouldn't bet the farm on it. But, an explanation from someone that knows - without doublespeak - would be nice.

7. Re: my reasons for not trying icerocket.

Quoting myself: "IceRocket: Haven't used it. Won't. Heard they did shitty things before. Not quite forgive-able. What the hell is an ice rocket? Logo is way too phallic."

I have tried icerocket. I was not impressed. You aren't doing anything novel. The main reason i check blog search engines is to see who is responding to me on their blog. (Oh, and I have a company. Not sure where the deliniation between company and individual uses is, Mark?) I take the rss feeds and subscribe. I haven't bothered to do this with icerocket, because frankly I think the other engines and trackbacks are getting everything. Further, I have found it to be a bit slow. The joke about the phallic logo was: a joke.

But I understand it's meaning. It is meant to symbolize your extra-ordinarily defensive testosterone levels.

As a peace offering: while writing this, I went and did a vanity search to see who is linking to me. I've subscribed. And I'll monitor. This should give a fair comparison of index size and speed compared to other blog search engines.

8. Technorati and blogpulse are the best blog search engines out there. I don't understand your implication that they are performing poorly, Jason. Frankly, I think they are leading the pack. Right after blogpulse.

Given both of your biases here, I recommend you cool on this before responding. There are several hundred people that read this blog. I am not the only one that thinks that icerocket blog search is a copy cat business with questionable business practices.

In the blogosphere, how you respond to justified criticisms and other's questions are a bigger indicator of your merit than whether you win the argument.

I have no vested interest in your success or failure. Consider me a customer (with a bunch of friends in the business) and consider this post: constructive criticism. And then decide how to respond.

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[Logo Design]

Wonderful post, i enjoyed to read your blog.

[medieval clothing]

Technorati invented it but icerocket coined the name bubble.. :P

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