There’s a joke that no good Web 2.0 service has come of age until there’s a script available to clone it. Digg has Pligg, Popurls has ezUrls (both predated AllTop). Now Twitter has ReVou.
ReVou promises “Twitter clone software made affordable” for $399 as a self hosted script. The script offers all of Twitters features, including SMS support, and even comes with its own API. The only question then becomes is why would you want to host your own Twitter? This is what ReVou says:
Existing site owners can benefit from running a micro blogging service resulting in more viral growth for your website when your users interact with follow friends by receiving updates via our social network platform. With our SMS integration as well as custom API, we allow you to gain more revenues through purchase of SMS credits, revenues from web advertisements and as well benefiting from 3rd party applications built for your site using our API.
Naturally I’m a little skeptical but there is a thriving marketplace for Digg style voting sites, with some services (Sphinn comes to mind) doing particularly well in various verticals. Perhaps there’s no reason why Twitter clones might not have some success, be it as stand alone sites or more likely integrated into existing membership based sites.
This has been out for a while now.
I was thinking about buying it and starting up my own twitter clone (Stalkr)
Sounds more like an SMS service in reality…
the revenue model sounds good..but then it does not guarantee that the twitter clone might work for u..as there are various other aspects to be taken care of.
There’s a reasonable Twitter clone already available for websites and blogs, the ShoutBox. It may not be as feature rich, but it will save me $400.
I think what needs to be ported from Digg is the commenting system, where you can digg or put a thumbs down on a comment.
So what happens to the Wordpress addon which was recently released to clone twitter using WP.
I think Matt and his team should concentrate a bit more to make more feature rich and powerful enough.
You also have Jisko, which is released as GNU Affero in http://blog.jisko.net/jisko-es-libre/ (only in Spanish, sorry, but it’s free, gratis, so no so sorry) and looks better than ReVou …..
I have bought so many clone software but never make money from it.
Before I know it, the web already change again.
“If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.”
David Ogilvy
Ogilvy could be wrong, given the web, and given web2.0
Always good to see newcomers, but thought I’d point out that the WordPress guys have already released a Twitter-esque theme, Prologue, totally gratis.
@113 sure, but while you can copy a tool, you can’t copy the community.
The difference between Digg and Twitter is the content you consume. Where on Digg you see stuff others have voted for, on Twitter you see tweets from people who you have added. So you have far more influence on what kind of information/benefit you get from Twitter, which makes it a tough sell for verticals.
the real question is how many twitters do we need? how many digg clones have succeeded? many of the web2.0 products are not rocket science the real trick is to get the critical mass and originality of being first to do that.
this reminds me of those free forum providers in late 90ies.
Coding twitter is not that complex, much of it is simply CRUD. And there are a number of SMS API’s out there.
Now what you can’t duplicate is the community.
I actually see this for people that like the idea of twitter, but want a private service for small groups.
I do agree on this.. it will be more successful for existing sites that are in more specific industry using this application rather than a general purpose like twitter.com
Wow…why would you ever want to spend money cloning a broken and failing business model?
They tried to hide the fact that revou is actually developed by a Singapore based company AlstraSoft http://www.alstrasoft.com/index.htm.
Stating: “Revou was founded on Dec, 2007 which we initially developed a social networking software similar to the micro blogging site, Twitter.com for our local automobile industry to create a platform for our users to get regular updates on major events” is big lie, as Revou is actually developed to sell as clone scripted only.
With that, look like AlstraSoft has bad reputation of selling buggy clone products. Take a look at http://www.hotscripts.com/review/78318.html.
Visit this:
http://internet-marketing-tools.org/alstrasoft/
Sunil, Thanks for the heads-up on this.
Duncan, I would highly recommend posting some sort of a warning about Revou. Specifically they are Alstrasoft rebranded.
Do some quick searches for “Alstrasoft Problems” and you will see their track record is horrid. They have built their business around very well designed landing pages to sell their shoddy software. They are quite responsive during the sales process, but once support is required they are Casper the ghost.
Revou & Alstrasoft should be avoided at all costs.