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« Les Blogs | Home | Les Blogs 2.0 - after the firs »

What's the sincerest form of flattery?

Bill Liao on 5.12.2005 at 16:04 h

According to this press release, there is a new star in the social software sky. Its name: successBC - written with small success & BIG BC. Sounds familiar ? Well, that's what I thought. It's probably a coincidence, right ?

So let's have a look at their logo...

Click here to view successBC's logo.

...and compare it to the logo of some other social software service, for example this one...

Openbc

Hmm, and we don't want to draw any hasty conclusions.

So lets have fun and open source this a little bit!

If you spot any additional similiarities between openBC and successBC, leave a comment here and I´ll give you a six month free premium membership...

Right then, 'nuff said ! ;-)

Technorati Tags: copycats, successbc

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19 Comments

Hanno Müller wrote on Dec 5, 2005 6:25:32 PM:

Funny. In the press release you linked to, successBC calls itself openBC:

"Mit Beginnn des Jahres 2006 wird jährlich der 'successBC Entrepreneur Award' in insgesamt 5 Klassen vergeben. Die Preise gehen von einer Gold-Mitgliedschaft --> BEI OPENBC <-- bis hin zu einem Preisgeld von 100.000 EURO für das erfolgreichste Start-Up-Unternehmen."

Yet there are no gold memberships at openBC. But there are gold memberships at successBC. Does that mean that their site is so similar to ours that they are mixing them up, themselves?

Martina wrote on Dec 5, 2005 9:36:00 PM:

Even more funny:
at the press relaese it says:
Vorraussetzung für die Teilnahme ist der Premium Mitglieder-Level.
At: http://www.beonit.com/successbc/
it says: jetzt kostenlos registrieren.

Well...

Marco Ripanti wrote on Dec 6, 2005 9:54:43 AM:

it's not a new star on the social software sky

This "indish MS ASP solution" is a big backdoor.

I think, it's a "normal" reaction of humans to try to copy good things. There are a lot of examples on the web, where people tried to copy our concepts ... but :-))))

Oliver Thylmann wrote on Dec 6, 2005 9:56:11 AM:

Ok, Hanno needs an award. Congratulations for the catch, really good one. :)

Greetings from Les Blogs.

Bill Liao wrote on Dec 6, 2005 5:28:43 PM:

Hanno definitely gets a reward and so does Martina.

Martina please send me a PM on openBC to collect. :-)

Jens wrote on Dec 7, 2005 2:55:34 PM:

i also like the comibination of the press agency openPR and successBC. combine the two names and you'll get: openBC. I guess most newspapers were as confused as I was at first sight.
and despite having four membershhip levels (for currently 13 members online ;-)) I guess I have heard "standard" and "premium membership" before ;-)

Hanno Müller wrote on Dec 7, 2005 3:28:01 PM:

Allow me to clarify: I don't need a premium membership, thank you. I'm one of the developers behind openBC.

Garan wrote on Dec 7, 2005 5:41:46 PM:

why do they come from your town?

garan wrote on Dec 8, 2005 1:57:08 PM:

gimme a pm too

Bill Liao wrote on Dec 8, 2005 6:08:40 PM:

I am amazed that they live in Appenzell and well spotted that is a similarity.

Bill Liao wrote on Dec 8, 2005 6:21:20 PM:

Incidently I will be upgrading the accounts on Monday.

tstoermer wrote on Dec 11, 2005 9:27:17 AM:

Hello everybody :-)

Take a look at www.successBC.com
www.evolutium.com, evolutium.ch,...
These accounts have been all suspended due nonpayment.

Bill Liao wrote on Dec 12, 2005 6:58:14 PM:

Hi,

Thanks for the comments and I am upgrading some accounts now.

Please send me a PM on openBC if you have contributed a similarity and wish to collect your upgrade.

Bill

Martina wrote on Dec 14, 2005 8:47:54 AM:

Hi I send a pm but...what happens now?
*stillinthedark*
Martina

sebastian wrote on Dec 15, 2005 2:04:20 PM:

I found this on the net remembering me of this blog ;)

Appenzell, 13.09.2005 Durch die 50% tige Beteiligung der Evolutium AG ( www.evolutium.ch ) an der international operierenden Telekommunikationsgruppe YO! communications ( www.yo.com.hk ) verstärkt die Evolutium AG Ihre strategischen Investments im Bereich der Telekommunikation. Die Evolutium AG ist eine international operierende Holding mit Ihrem Hauptsitz in Appenzell / Schweiz..

YO! communications is
a division of
Mandarin Pacific Communications Limited

Well...

Bill Liao wrote on Dec 15, 2005 7:03:03 PM:

Hi Martina,

Your account was upgraded on last Monday :-)

Bill

Peter Johnstone wrote on Dec 17, 2005 4:14:36 AM:

Hey Bill, right now these successBC guys are but a tiny spot on the face of social networking. They seem to know it, too, why else would they lower prices in the premium membership category. Silly buggers. Don't they know that little guys never win price wars! I'd say, squeeze them out now, lest they develop into a nasty zit.

sebastian wrote on Dec 17, 2005 2:58:25 PM:

By the way: Did anybody see an option to change the language on the sucessBC page???

Would be a nice feature since they are advertising "Internationalität" on the main page :)

Maybe they just want to say: "Yes, this is an international page, as lang as you understand German!" ;)

Great.....

Mike Marshall wrote on Mar 10, 2006 8:12:12 AM:

I think that it is interesting that when you look at the logos side by side the italisized parts of the logos are reversed. The coloring is the very simular as well. I did a little more research and they are claiming rights and they started in 2004 with records of this domain dating back to 2001. If you look they are claiming that oepnBC is promoting them on this blog.

They claim that the logo was created in 1999 and has been used since then.

From what I see they are working on building a social/business networking site but I have only seen 14 users logged in at any one time. So they still have a long way to go.