Since when has number of free downloads in the app store been a measure of business model viability? The fact is they are pursuing destructive means to grow their business, as an investor I would much prefer to have founders who were investing my monies in a constructive way especially given the generic and dissimilar app names. I mean how good a product do they have if they feel that the name of their competitors app is having such a material impact on their business?
I think saying you'll change your name then not doing it is pretty shitty too.
So is posting a 'help I'm being attacked' article but failing to mention you built your app as a demo for WhosHere hoping they would buy it from you as their windows client seems more than a bit misleading.
It sounds misleading, I agree, but I don't think it's actually misleading. Remember, implementation is more important than ideas.
Nobody involved in this dispute is the first person to think of displaying a list of people that are nearby, and "who's here" and "who's near me" are both equally generic descriptions of this functionality.
Something is missing here. Did Brian Hamacheck rename his app or not. One of the letters Brian says he will change it, but Who's Near Me is all over his website. Is this a case of he said he would do something then lied about it and is now surprised he's being sued?
And I don't understand how they are stealing his work. They just asked for a name change. Then they offered to buy him out and share revenue.
I was thinking that too, to me it's the big obvious elephant in the room in this HN discussion - he said he'd change the name and then didn't, or that's the impression I've gotten anyway.
