Buried in the news yesterday that former Harvard student Aaron Greenspan is claiming to be the founder of Facebook was mention of Greenspan’s own startup: CommonRoom.
Perhaps I’m being a little cynical, as I’m sure in truth that it’s a complete coincidence that Greenspan is publicly claiming founder status for Facebook in the NY Times whilst promoting a Facebook competitor. As for CommonRoom, the wow didn’t quite happen for me, but you can be the judge:
Sorry CommonRoom, I’m still a FB fan!
I’ll use it if they pay me.
Duncan, you do realized you already reported on this yesterday?
Too little too late, MS is getting ready to buy Facebook, then it will really take off!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Wait, how is this beter than facebook? Because the owner is deciding ahead of time the random people that cant be trusted on the rest of the internet CAN be trusted on commonroom? Is this just begging for someone that ISNT trustworhty to come bust a cap?
he claimed to be a FOUNDER of facebook? Or did he simply claim that the term “the facebook” and the concept of the facebook experience was his own?
I understand the story to be that this guy isn’t claiming to have built facebook or be a “founder” of facebook, per se. simply saying he was a major infuence in the whole thing that has been ignored amongst all the connectU mumbo jumbo.
In this crazy industry the word “founder” means more than simply “the guy who thought of it (or claims to have thought of it).” .. it means the individuals responsible for actually launching the empire; establishing the domain name, conceiving the business model, funding the development, etc. To claim to be the “founder” of facebook is to calim to be Zuckerburg himself (stolen or not). as i understand it he has explicitly said he is NOT claiming to be the founder of facebook, and saying that NO real code was stolen from him.
I’m growing slightly tired of the superfluous hyperbole duncan… i respect this blog still and am starting to see a trend toward a more “mashable” style of crap-o-la coming out of it (yeah, i said it. mashable is crap.) and it seems that when the write up is underclass it is accompanied by the same name under the author column. you have to be damn good at what you do to have arrington let you publish under the tech crunch banner… please do him and his loyal readers a service by maintaining the integrity of both this blog and your own name.
god strike me dead if i’ve mispoken and this guy did claim to be a “founder” somewhere along the way… it wont be the first time my foot has been crammed in my mouth; be that the case, i beg your forgiveness and a resounding “no dippy, you check the facts before commenting” can sound-off. but i’ve read about this story on all the blogs and now at 10:30 on a saturday night, holliday weekend, the word “founder” creeps into the scene… i just don’t like it.
p.s. there’s a reason it was buried.
As I wrote in the previous post about a social network with the “innovation” of having RSS feeds, I need another social network like another hole in the head.
Do we care that he invented it? Shoulda coulda woulda. Or as Artie Lange might say… “Waaaaaa, they stole my idea.” Get over it.
The next thing is going to be just that, the next thing. It’s not going to be some incremental feature issue on the same idea.
P.S. Please mark the fake steve ballmer as spam. It’s really not interesting.
Yes, this is a bad site. But Duncan’s headline is far, far worse . . .
Andrew (comment 3)
Um yes, that would be the first link in the post….this is a follow up post, I didn’t have details on his startup yesterday nor a product video.
If this guy really had his site “ripped off” in whatever way by Zuckerberg and co then I’ll give CommonRoom a go. The best thing CommonRoom could do is copy Facebook utterly *and improve it* - give Zuckerberg a taste of his own medicine. But then again, I am just being sensationalist.
DUNCAN DUNCAN DUNCAN……do us ALL favor and stop reporting on anything to do with FACEBOOK, their founders, reincarnated founders, yada, yada, yada. I am beginning to think FB owns this blog they way all of you preach about it. ENOUGH.
The initial videos and such make it look pretty useless, but other than the boring monologue, it has a lot of cool features. You can watch the video here:
http://www.commonroom.com/publishing.html
Damn I need to sue Facebook too, just for all the publicity!
Dominic,
these two founder posts are the first time I’ve written a thing remotely related to Facebook in over a month: check the archives.
I remember when I was a senior in college, I started a website. I thought it was the greatest site on earth and it totally sank. It took me 2 years (later) to realise how horrible the site was and it left a bad taste in my mouth. CommonRoom reminded me of my old site and how it left that bad taste. But one thing though, for a site that may not even pass High School standard, he did a pretty good job in having his site featured on Techcrunch.
I signed up for CommonRoom just for the hell of it, just to check it out. I don’t think it can go viral at all, due to the fact that you are required to be part of some sort of organization first. And since anyone can register an organization, there’s a lot of room for fake stuff. The interface, looks something out of a web1.0 webmail application. I think it has some potential, but it needs loads of improvement.
Zuckerberg’s pig will win the show.
I don’t get it… this is a joke right? That is the video presenting the company? Aaron give me just $100 and I give you a wow
Duncan, you’re right, this is not “wow” material. So why are you reporting it? I don’t read TC to find out about what’s *not* awesome.
This reminds me of how Joystiq can’t stop reporting on Jack Thompson’s every move. By sharing this type of information with the world, you do nothing but encourage these type of people.
Don’t feed the trolls and they’ll stop coming around.
This reminds me of Jack and the giant bean lol.
hi
many years ago when i was a child, my first computer was a vic 20, did absolutely nothing then i had a commodore 64 which was the first time i hears of a modem. As a child i visulised this fantastic world of communicating to other people via the computer, shop, bank, gain information, chat ect…
I was extremmely excited to get this computer but left terribly disappointed that it did nothing that i visulised that it could do. I was so disappointed my passion for computers waned until the likes of Bill gates came along and implemented my dreams.
Its one thing is having a idea or dream, but another thing is to implement it. Im sure many people visualised what computers and the web could do, but it would absurb to think that we all could have a claim of creating microsoft.
The promotion is so cheesy!!
On one hand, the video is ridiculous in that they are all but promising world peace. At the same time, you have to give the guy some credit for being savvy enough to get some serious coverage of his website.
That video makes me cringe…
GEOCITIES 4 LIFE! [I honestly couldn't help it, I think I have turrets]
reminds me of common.net.
Funny, their public demo boldly displays the massage “Created by an unlicensed copy of BB FlashBack”
Common Room public demo
It isn’t from Microsoft, it’s crap!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
cheesedick overload!