August 9, 2007

Who Is Cloning Who? Business2.0, try again

Ouriel Ohayon

89 comments »

So the internet looks like a huge cloning jungle? Ideas blossom here and others replicate them there? Often abroad. TechCrunch covered yesterday a German copycat of Geni and the connection was indeed pretty obvious.

Business2.0 just released in its August edition (print magazine) a list of clones per country of 4 star Web2.0 companies: Digg, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. There is just one problem, the information is pretty much inaccurate and even wrong. Let’s take France for example. SkyBlog, the largest french social network, is nowhere near FaceBook, and even so it was there much before (would be closer to MySpace maybe). Scoopeo, supposed to be a Digg clone, is not a French company, but a Belgium company (the service is in French though). DailyMotion was created before YouTube: who is cloning who?

Other local players might have been much more relevant to quote and it seems like their source of information is not bullet proof. And from what I can read here, the same goes for the India selection. I don’t know well enough other countries to detect other mistakes, but maybe you can.There is clearly a case to be made here: clones are everywhere and this is the price to pay in a booming industry; But Business2.0 failed in pointing the right players out.

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Comments

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  1. trade dvds GURU

    Wow, I really like their content most the time. This is some bad research for sure.

  2. RBA

    Considering what I know about some of those sites, the research clearly sucks big time. Vostu isn’t a Facebook for Mexico (they try to position themselves as a FB for latinos wherever they are) and last I heard the have just a few thousand registered users, clearly not relevant. BuscaTube is a video metasearch site, nothing like YouTube, and InfoJobs might be considered a Monster.com clone, not LinkedIn - just to name a few…

    Anyhow… where did we park the “do something that works and make it better?” and change it with the word “clone”?

    Is that a 2.0 thingy? Where did I hear that Google is after all an Altavista clone, or that in fact, most of what Google does is cloning other ideas that already existed, right? Hmmm, no, I’ve never heard that anywhere. The moment you become successful, it seems that you’re no longer a clone, if you were ever called that name (hint, the case above with YouTube and Daily Motion where now the site that first launched is considered a clone).

  3. Mike Butcher

    Perhaps this is why Business 2.0 is about to go out of business… ;-)

  4. Maiko

    At least for Brazil they’ve nailed it. The fact is that it makes totally sense (at least for me) to have a local “digg-like” clone due to language and cultural differences and specially when it is related to text content like news, but I wouldn’t apply the same model to something like youtube.

  5. John / SocialNext

    Bravo Business 2.0

    *slow claps*

  6. Alfred (PayScroll.com)

    I have been an avid reader and subscriber of Business 2.0 since the very early days.. but things started to change with the B2.0 since 2006, the pages got lesser.. but content was still very good. But after receiving and reading the August edition.. I was and disappointed. The articles were just ok and was sparse with not many articles as compared to many issues ago.

  7. anuj

    Calling rajshri.com as indian clone of youtube borders on being hilarious….you cant even upload a video on rajshri.com

    having said that there are tons and tons of youtube clones in india…

    On social networking site we have yaari.com and others…

    some even copy the UI…wonder when we will see the likes of http://www.Shaadi.com ( matrimonial sites) get copied in US :-)

  8. Jose Negron

    I thought I was the only one! I unsubscribed B2.0 a while ago…

  9. Deelip

    Even I am making a clone of facebook. Why don’t they list me?

  10. Hardware statistics compiled from real-world data

    In Romania there are many copycats: there’s http://www.trilulilu.ro/ - a YouTube clone, and also http://www.digg.ro .. a local Digg alternative.

  11. Deals and Coupons

    Never heard of most of these services. FB rules!

  12. kent

    man, business20 was one of my favorite mags, and before that…’the industry standard’…i sure know how to pick ‘em.

  13. beachbong

    I wonder how they compiled this data. I looked around at Quantcast, Alexa and Compete and none of this data makes any sense.

    As you mentioned, most of the research on India is totally wrong. IndianPad.com is by far the biggest digg-like site in that sub-continent and even the other categories look wrong.

  14. Detroit

    Is anyone going to copy edit this post? It’s literally like someone wrote it and published it.

  15. Peter

    I agree, this article was completely ridiculous. I remember using DailyMotion well before YouTube ever came out. I swear, Business 2.0 has gotten way dumber since they were acquired.

  16. Vincent van Wylick

    Apart from the inconsistency with the Belgium site, history works in a simple fashion in that the victor writes it. So even though Dailymotion and other sites may have been started before-hand, they have a great incentive to copy at least part of what the market-leader offers, in order to draw customers away from it. So I don’t think “cloning” is really a chronological concept, at least not in this case.

  17. BlinkGeo

    I think it would be more interesting to see whether there are other ‘clones’ that try to corner in on a specific vertical market or some sort of niche. As some of the comments have pointed out, some of the sites listed (and not listed) are not confined to a single country, but rather are targeted at cultures/populations for whom the ‘original’ sites (i.e., Digg, Facebook, etc.) may not have as much appeal. It’s all about context. IMHO, the mass appeal of some of these sites is also a detractor, as they can become diluted.

  18. mainstreetreporter

    I love Business 2.0. Been a subscriber for several years, will continue to subscribe, and I treat the arrival of each edition like a kid with candy.

    Looks like they got a few things wrong in this article. Certainly never happens in a blog post, eh? All blog posts on your favorite (well staffed, nice ad revenue stream) blog are 100 percent accurate and the best they can be, right? Anyone read the B2.0 article called The Man Who Owns The Internet?

    http://money.cnn.com/magazines.....2007052214

    Great stuff, really deep digging on the domain name game. I can pick a hundred other articles like this I’ve cut and saved, or blog posts I’ve bookmarked for future reference. Actually, I’ve never thrown away a magazine edition. I go back and reread them constantly, and enjoy them all over again. No other mag has ever had that effect on me, so count me in as a fan to stay.

  19. Ouriel Ohayon

    mainstreetreporter> Business2.0 could have easily saved some mistakes by simply visiting the homepage of some of the quoted companies. Obviously this was not done

  20. Shawn

    Send in the Clones

    Sung to the tune of “Send in the Clowns”
    http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics.....clowns.htm

    Isn’t it rich?
    Isn’t it queer,
    Scoopeo’s in French but -not- French, my dear
    Me here on TechCrunch,
    You there with a 2.0 but without a clue.
    Where are the clones?
    Send in the clones…

    Just when I’d stopped reading dead trees,
    Finally knowing the blog that I wanted was Mike’s,
    Making his jabs again with his usual flair,
    Sure of his facts,
    Business2.0 is nowhere..

    Don’t you love farce?
    Your fault I fear.
    SkyBlog’s no Facebook and been there for years
    But where are the clones? There ought to be clones
    Well, maybe next year…

  21. Brad

    “Who is quoting whom?”

  22. mainstreetreporter

    Agree. Sloppy. The idea behind the article was solid, but the specific examples picked and the research backing those examples must’ve been farmed out to an intern who is now in hiding. Hopefully they’ll post a correction in the next edition, and reboot their careful button.

    My point is that one sloppy article does not change the other 1,232 (just a guestimate, not an accurate represenation) that I’ve enjoyed and benefited from.

  23. Rajesh Shakya

    I appreciate that Business 2.0 brought the story of copy cat.

    Rajesh Shakya
    http://www.rajeshshakya.com

  24. beyond work

    may be they might have got $$$ from the publicity of the websites.

  25. Chris Sack

    Putfile.com & filecabi.net were created almost a year before dailymotion.

  26. Sebastian Moser

    Does it _really_ matter?

    Ok, there are really bad copycat-sites (in Germany: StudiVZ, Verwandt.de, Frazr). But a lot of these sites aren’t copycat-sites at all. In Germany, there are several other sites that are _called_ copycat-sites, but DAMN - it can’t be a “facebook-clone” if it is a social network for students.

    And: There are many things you can’t simply copy. That’s the reason, why a lot of American companies have PROBLEMS entering the European market. There ARE cultural differences. Copying an idea and adopting it to local needs isn’t copying. It’s innovating on existing ideas.

    Read this blog by a friend from an Austrian start-up: http://www.qoove.com/blog/?p=20

  27. ahmetali

    Yahoo answers Turkish clone is kolaycevap.com

  28. Alaska Miller

    Techcrunch should hire a a team of 10 copyeditors so that way your posts are read and proofed every hour on the hour that it’s published.

  29. eursds

    They might copy some things but the design is different , they add some their ideas , new funtcions and its just different … not everyone want to use the american sites…

  30. chuba

    skyrock.com was created WELL before facebook, myspace, etc.

  31. Eishman

    Hey, if a clone takes on an idea, makes it better and is successful all power to them. That’s how we evolve. The wheel was a great idea, but useless until someone attached it to something!
    btw, South Africa’s http://www.muti.co.za would be more of a Reddit clone than a Digg.com clone in my opinion.

  32. eursds

    bulgarian one
    http://svejo.net/ - digg like
    http://zazzbg.com/ - youtube like
    but i prefer them they load times faster and its local community :D

  33. S2day

    hey~ here is your wp theme copy site.
    http://www.hoogle.kr/

  34. Fabio Seixas

    This occurs with Videolog and YouTube in Brazil too. Videolog came before YouTube. Videlolog was launched in 2004.

  35. scott

    How 2.0 is a “print” magazine anyway?

  36. Importer

    Rajshri.com is hilarious..They are a movie house who sell their movies online..That’s it. Dekhona.com or Rediff iShare could have been better YouTube clones..

  37. Bas

    The Netherlands:
    1) Hyves existed before FaceBook and it’s not much like Facebook at all.
    2) Skoeps, although a video site also is not much like youtube at all.

  38. Michel

    @Bas - correct Skoeps is all about news related video clips.

    This is what the site says: “Skoeps is the world’s first national news site that consists entirely of eyewitness images. People capture news events with their phones and send the pictures or videos directly to Skoeps.nl. Their images are often unique, and highly sought after by other media.”

    So not exactly like YouTube, but more a specific niche (news video clips).

  39. Jim Kerr

    We have worked with Skyrock for a long time, and it is true that Skyrock’s social networking site predates MySpace and Facebook. However, to be fair to Business 2.0, until relatively recently it was called Skyblogs, so maybe they were confused.

  40. Michael

    I pretty much fed up with this magazine. I’m getting renewal notices for $19.99/year and I can setup a new subscription for only $9.99. What a rip off anyway, especially with this kind of content.

  41. Anna

    Americans are so xenophobic.

    American companies are the defaults and everyone else copied?

    Wo. I guess the writers at Biz20 never leave the boarder.

  42. Bruno Collet

    The whole assumption behind the B2 article is flawed: non-US web services are cloning successful US web services. With such a ridiculous and arrogant underlying assumption, it doesn’t even matter whether the research is correct or not (it’s not…).
    It would be more interesting to identify the first-comer in each niche, wherever it is located, and draw the path of innovation toward the current market leader.
    After all, entrepreneurship is about improving the existing, marshalling resources to make it happen, and marketing the innovation. You can call it cloning, but then what is not cloning?

  43. Jeffrey

    FACEBOOK A CLONE OF FRIENDSTER

  44. startupflames.com

    no wonder business 2.0 is about to go under. Still, even though some of the info is wrong, there are clones EVERYWHERE.

  45. Jeffrey

    It’s like in the Philippines, people in Manila the capital of the Philippines thinks they are center of correct pronunciations and premier beautiful accent, but in reality it’s the opposite.

    Business 2.0 Needs more research!

  46. reader

    They are also partially off for Germany:
    studivz.de admittedly is a 100% clone of facebook (they even called it fakebook internally).
    I believe there is a German TV network behind myvideo.de (ProSiebenSat.1)

    Xing on the other hand was started around the same time as Linkedin (2000/2001?), so I wouldn’t call it a clone.

    And Germany actually had the first social news/online bookmarking service with SiteCharts.com /SiteCharts.de … since 1999!!
    (they seem to be currently revamping the site to start a new offering)

  47. Yi-Wyn Yen, Business 2.0

    Ouriel Ohayon is splitting hairs, even more than the Indian blogger. It must be a slow news month for TechCrunch and its clone, Tech Chakra.

    According to your own Crunchbase, Daily Motion (March 2005) came out a month after YouTube (February 2005).

    http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dailymotion
    http://www.crunchbase.com/company/youtube

    And while two of the “clones” we list are older, the point is irrelevant. They’re not the global market leaders and have had reason to copy features from the sites that are. Yes, Skyrock could be more accurately described as a MySpace cone, but the way this chart is laid out, there’s no way to make one minor distinction for one site. The same goes for Scoopeo, which may be over the border in Belgium, but which we squeezed into the French column because its biggest audience is in France. We cede one inaccuracy among 39 clones in up-and-comer video portal Rajshri, which does not include video-sharing features like YouTube.

    While not everyone agrees with our list, the point of this chart is that when you’re in France, China or Russia and you want to say the equivalent of “Facebook” or “LinkedIn” in the local language, this is the site you talk about. Consider that China alone has dozens of YouTube knockoffs, and we know that people will dispute whether 56.com, ku6.com or Tudou.com is the better version. Ohayon doesn’t seem to be disputing that fact for any of these sites. Nor does he offer better alternatives. Sounds like a classic case of provincial snootiness.

  48. reader

    Further to my other post:
    digg is the clone since they copied sitecharts.com / sitecharts.de
    and linkedin would have been smart to copy xing/openbc which was started around the same time but to this day is one of the best social networks.

  49. Meir

    What about the israeli metacafe? It existed well before flix

  50. Meir

    Oh, and they forgot the French facebox. (Even the name is a clone)

  51. Turkish

    Nooluyo is a Twitter clone, a Digg clone is Oyyla.com youtube clone is not resim ve video (meaning foto and video) its izlesene.com which is not actually a clone unless you call all video sites a youtube clone.

  52. Alex

    40 - Yeah let’s just sit here and pretend no cloning is going on. I don’t know where you’re from since you didn’t state it, but one thing is clear. You aren’t any better than any american so get off your soapbox. The fact that you so quickly bash all people in one country shows how small your brain is.

  53. Steph

    Business 2.0 trying to clone Business Beta 0.1 … ?

  54. intelguy

    Business 2.0 article is so dumb. What is a clone anyways? I just think evolution comes in different forms and sometimes it will be tagged as cloning.

    http://www.intelways.com
    your search starts here

  55. Yi-Wyn Yen, Business 2.0

    Ouriel Ohayon is splitting hairs, even more than the Indian blogger. It must be a slow news month for TechCrunch and its clone, Tech Chakra.

    According to your own Crunchbase, Daily Motion (March 2005) came out a month after YouTube (February 2005).

    http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dailymotion
    http://www.crunchbase.com/company/youtube

    And while two of the “clones” we list are older, the point is irrelevant. They’re not the global market leaders and have had reason to copy features from the sites that are. Yes, Skyrock could be more accurately described as a MySpace cone, but the way this chart is laid out, there’s no way to make one minor distinction for one site. The same goes for Scoopeo, which may be over the border in Belgium, but which we squeezed into the French column because its biggest audience is in France. We cede one inaccuracy among 39 clones in up-and-comer video portal Rajshri, which does not include video-sharing features like YouTube.

    While not everyone agrees with our list, the point of this chart is that when you’re in France, China or Russia and you want to say the equivalent of “Facebook” or “LinkedIn” in the local language, this is the site you talk about. Consider that China alone has dozens of YouTube knockoffs, and we know that people will dispute whether 56.com, ku6.com or Tudou.com is the better version. Ohayon doesn’t seem to be disputing that fact for any of these sites. Nor does he offer better alternatives. Sounds like a classic case of provincial snootiness.

  56. JAmes.

    Business 2.0 got the best startup articles!!!

    They are even more professional and got killer instincts to help any startups. Can Techcrunch do it? Nope… They just keep blogging and banging their head to the wall.

  57. mainstreetreporter

    Glad for post #47/55, some clarification and context from Biz 2.0 folks. Sheds some light on the chum and sharkfest prevelant in this thread.

    Think I’ll pull out my stack of Biz 2.0s and enjoy some quality time tonight.

  58. Tony

    Well done for spotting the errors and making them public

  59. Michael Vu

    This is great. Too bad Business 2.0 magazine is going away…

  60. Joseph

    They totally missed Japan’s “clonees” and cloners as well, of which there are a ton.

  61. Ouriel Ohayon

    #55> i believe the readers of this blog give you a pretty good feel of the way this is perceived no matter how “accurate” your explanations are. Coming from Business2.0 i guess readers are expecting more than average simplification. One piece of advise: make sure that you book your plan ticket right next time you go to Bruxelles. You could land in Paris

    If you want better alternatives to your suggestion. just read TechCrunch France where i cover all the “clones”. Just to give you a hint stutiqg.fr is a real french copycat of FaceBook. But i guess you would have to “split hair” to find that out

    Btw: regarding israel i feel compelled you did not mention MetaCafe that was there before YouTube and which is way bigger than Flix. Since you do not mind about the date of release this would have been a much better pick.

    Sounds a tyipcal case of americano-centrism

  62. iMarketingGuru (Search Marketing Wiki)

    clones are so rampant and so good for creating businesses that even GetAFreeLancer has a huge section for clones when you search “clone” on the top right. You can clone any type of site these days, the only thing that is necessary though is the whole issue of programming the site out more, scalability and building on your own content while ensuring you get high traffic.

  63. Ouriel Ohayon

    There is one line missing in B2.0 table. The Clones made in…America. And there are a few no? (Digg/ Netcape, FaceBook/Pulse, Youtube/…). That would have spiced up the article

  64. iMarketingGuru (Search Marketing Wiki)

    Well, you can clone anything, the funny thing is that this list may be long but the truth is, the clones are on an unbelievably longer list. Why only focus on those different services as well? Why not focus on many more for this topic is highly interesting. Also, which of these services were started in the US versus the other countries? It’s a strong possibility that most of the owners of these clones are actually not based in the countries that their businesses serve.

  65. C Libor

    “The Revolution … will successively devour all its children.”

    Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud; * 31.05.1753 Limoges; + 31.10.1793 Paris

  66. Joachim Graf

    The informations about the German “clones” are also incorrect. Xing is doing more and better things than LinkedIn an Myvideo is more a official promotion platform for German TV than an user generated content platform

  67. Shlyapo

    hi, i just want backlink from you :)
    kiddin
    i want to say that some “clones” are much more better than the “originals” (e.g. news2.ru and digg.com, facebook and friendster, and so on).
    and i also think that talking about clones/originals is kinda silly in 21st century… even when if we talk about almighty web2.0 (ohh, god save it’s holy light!!)

  68. P

    Clones in Sweden:

    YouTube

    http://www.bubblare.se
    Eniro acquired 48,1% for $1,200.000 i february 2007.
    “Eniro is the leading search company in the Nordic media market. With directories, directory assistance, Internet and mobile services, Eniro makes it easy to find people, businesses and products.”

    Digg

    http://www.sovrat.se

    http://www.hypa.se
    Owned by IDG.

    http://www.hajpa.se

  69. Anand C

    I do have to admit that this particular Business 2.0 article lacked some of the proper fact checking I would expect from a full on print magazine. I especially thought that mentioning the “Digg clone” (using Pligg) in India called Best of Indya was just ridiculous. It does not seems mature enough to be compared with Digg. Whereas Burrp! is a legitimate site.

    That said, Business 2.0 is still one of my favorite magazines. Lots of great articles and insight, though I agree with one of the other posters that lately they have been going for less in depth articles, but rather “quick hit” one page articles.

  70. Michael Lambie

    could this be stopped with better translation options?

    where are all the techcrunch clones? i want to see the turkish michael arrington.

  71. Sue

    Found another site similar to Digg, http://www.convote.com

  72. reader

    @66
    Hi Joachim. Thanks for supporting my arguments.
    You forgot the German based SiteCharts.com which served as inspiration for digg ;-)

  73. wasim

    Ridiculous article… looking for digg in india… should have listed indianpad.com or ekjut.com. Social networking - probably desimartini.com.

  74. Sergio

    We ( http://www.nobisbrand.com ) cloned Woot! ( http://www.nobisbrand.com )
    Well, you know .. business are business !

  75. Sergio

    We ( http://www.nobisbrand.com ) cloned Woot! ( http://www.woot.com )
    Well, you know .. business are business !

  76. Rolf

    What about http://www.amiz.fr/ ?
    They seem to be quite big and look like MySpace / Facebook.

  77. huashao

    看看我们的非抄袭产品:www.9ye.com

  78. Foxinni

    SOUTH AFRICA DOES have it’s own facebook clone. Maybe not as zippy a facebook yet. We are sure getting there. Check it out and decide for yourself…

  79. Ders

    Amazing article, really loved it. People are simply copying what has been succesful and try to get rich by that.. Original ideas on the net are becoming more and more scarce.

  80. India watcher

    Business 2.0 list is hilarious.
    I am an Indian Internet analyst. I track startups here…not too many (lol)
    The indian clone for youtube mentioned is rajshri. It’s a corporate website of a movie studio.

    real youtube competitors in India are dekhona.com and aapkavideo.com now rediff ishare.com funny how some journalists are so bad at their research.