Comments on: Xobni Acquires IP From Failed Web 1.0 Startup FireDrop

By: Xobni acquires Firedrop to get Zaplet tech, Widgets for Email to finally materialize? | Widgets Lab

Sat, 10 May 2008 01:54:47 +0000

[...] via techcrunch Technorati Tags: Xobni,firedrop,zaplets,outlook plugin,e-mail networking,e-mail widgets,widget for email Sphere: Related Content [...]

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:48:21 +0000

I loved that product — it solved so many of my companies creative problems in hosting conversations inside a live e-mail. We used it to communicate with our team members.

By: John

John — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:00:35 +0000

Interesting folks mention how the Gmail email system works when talking about Zaplet. One of the founders of Zaplet is the PM for Gmail.

By: Roundup: Facebook’s big profile changes, MySpace misses revenue targets, and more » VentureBeat

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:29:18 +0000

[...] Zaplets’s problem was that it was ahead of its time, Xobni chief executive Jeff Bonforte tells Techcrunch. So, look for Zaplet technology in Xobni. MeeVee bought, finally — The Burlingame, Calif. [...]

By: Tony Lodge

Tony Lodge — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:28:24 +0000

John
As I said earlier, I am working in conjunction with metricstream and I do have a niche area that I feel it is a perfect fit for. I have looked at a lot of vendors to solve the problem I am having and I always fall back to zaplet. If you want to talk let me know

By: John K

John K — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:49:19 +0000

Well, as one of the names listed on one of the patents, I think I can chime in. I am still a firm believer in what Zaplet was trying to do. I agree with one of the early posters… it just got too complicated. I wanted to keep it simple. Unforunately, the screenshots in the article don’t show the last design which was very well done. I’d like to give kudos to Xobni for recognizing the value. The key to solving some of the Zaplet problems is exactly what Xobni has to offer – access to Outlook. Once a plug in is installed a lot of the security and ‘blocking’ issues would be solved.

I always wanted to revive Zaplet but just never got off my butt.

By: John’s Blog » Blog Archive » firedrop! zaplet!

John’s Blog » Blog Archive » firedrop! zaplet! — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:51:28 +0000

[...] a weird blast-from-the-past moment, TechCrunch reported yesterday that hot mail startup Xobni has acquired the IP from Zaplet (nee Firedrop), a company we started from Reactivity nearly 10 years ago. TC has bits and pieces of the story, and [...]

By: Dew Drop - May 8, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew

Dew Drop - May 8, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:15:47 +0000

[...] Xobni Acquires IP From Failed Web 1.0 Startup FireDrop (Michael Arrington) [...]

By: Sundar M.S.

Sundar M.S. — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:31:06 +0000

One of the common thread between Firedrop (Zaplet) -> MetricStream and Xobni is Vinod Kholsa. Kleiner Perkins was a major investor in Firedrop / MetricStream and Khosla was a board member. Now in Xobni Khosla has invested thro’ Khosla Ventures ..

By: Xobni = Lame YC Company

Xobni = Lame YC Company — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:57:07 +0000

My inbox is just fine. Xobni doesn’t really solve the issue. MSFT will fix it themselves. Goodbye.

By: JC

JC — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:38:10 +0000

I don´t see much future to this application. It clearly slows the process.

By: Ryan Graves

Ryan Graves — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:18:12 +0000

good pick up-still slowing my outlook {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/D2glZ938iM_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”good pick up-still slowing my outlook ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/JthRj0clhc”}}}

By: Stefan

Stefan — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:59:37 +0000

Note to self: refresh page before writing your comment….

By: Stefan

Stefan — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:53:41 +0000

Quite a few of the commenters got the wrong end of the stick here, I think. Read the post carefully They didnt buy the code, they bought 10 patents. How these patents relate to their own current work, we dont even know. Which elements of those patents they will actually implement is hinted at by their CEO, but again, we dont really know.

Generally speaking, being a company that tries to reinvent the inbox, having 10 patents added to your IP at a pretty low price doesnt seem like too bad an idea to me

By: Jeff Bonforte

Jeff Bonforte — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:40:14 +0000

I should clarify a few things:
(a) Xobni licensed the IP from MetricStream, not bought. The IP in question is 10 very well written, very well thought-out patents. So Metric Stream “owns” the IP. We licensed the consumer licenses exclusively and have an enterprise license, but non-exclusively
(b) MetricStream *is* Firedrop. It didn’t go out of business. It evolved and is a profitable ongoing company with great products. It focuses on enterprise products today. Today we focus on individual users.
(c) We don’t own any of the Zaplets code. I am sure it is great code, but that is still very much MetricStream’s asset. Xobni sees a bright future in making email better. Part is through a smarter inbox with our existing product. But we also see a future where the email itself is smarter and more powerful. That is driver behind licensing this IP from MetricStream.

Otherwise, thanks for the post Michael. The inbox is broken. We want to help make it better.

By: Tony Lodge

Tony Lodge — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:08:16 +0000

Given a number of the developers and architects went there it is no surpirse. However, I have been looking to use it in a totally different way than it was ever intended for. There are a number of misconceptions going on in this thread, the security was totally revamped in version three and was actually done by a person I would call one of the smartest security people I have met ( he was one of the original developers from netscape ). As for the comments around dhtml etc, we also provided other implementations that would allow you to work with this system either via email, standard webpage as well as portlets

By: laughin

laughin — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:08:03 +0000

worked at zaplet. the tech and concept were crap then. the world moved on. this thing should have died on the scrap heap with the rest of the bust.

wank-wear at its finest.

By: mediachest

mediachest — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:20:13 +0000

I think here is more important idea, than just matter of implementation, like Java, EJB, PHP and so on. Internet security almost killed the idea. However I believe the idea is more powerful if someone can think now. it is future of Internet and entire e-mail system. BTW Google was inspired by Zaplet idea when created gmail.

By: Tony Lodge

Tony Lodge — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:59:38 +0000

As one of the architects brought in to develop version 3 of zaplet it appears to me that this is simply a patent grab. The whole technology is built on Java specifically to run on BEA and JBoss. It must also be said that the latest version that came out was 80% opensource.

For people to assume we just dispursed is not the case, it was infact a decision made internally to move the code to india, however, the decision was then made to simply shelve the code.

I am now chief integtation architect for a telco in Canada and I must say I see almost on a daily basis area’s that the technology could be used. Anyway, hope they have fun with it, but I doubt the code written by myself and others will ever see the light of day

By: PS

PS — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:49:36 +0000

I work on SW patents nearly every week in my startup. They protect our original ideas, create value, and provide a barrier to entry. What “sucks” is not having your IP protected and then watching MS throw 100 engineers on your idea and swamping you out of the market.

No SW patents = No innovation

Xobni – good move and good luck.

By: Dave Winer

Dave Winer — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:44:33 +0000

I’m having a hard time remembering the product, but I do remember the company was a place that Vinod stored a massive amount of money during the dotcom bust. I remember being totally puzzled why a company with such an iffy product neeed $150 million or so.

I think the idea was web forms in Outlook email messages. A big “So…?” — it seemed that Microsoft did all the work of this innovation. Maybe Xobni wants to sue people who use HTML email or maybe they got sued by whatever remains of Zaplet.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:55:15 +0000

@!6, yea, but you forgot:L

-2/3 US population IP connectivity penetration (200M people)
- “Always on” connectivity (no-dialup, lol)
- much improved security and PERCEIVED security (pervasive ecommerce/ ebanking)

The current state of the internet lends itself well to many “web 1.0″ ideas that were simply to early b/c of technology maturity and community acceptance. Let’s see more.

SW patents suck

By: Sol

Sol — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:46:38 +0000

xobni {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/nCAw4vATF3_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”xobni ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/SIZHLpsPDL”}}}

By: Derek Scruggs

Derek Scruggs — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:56:12 +0000

I thought Zaplets were pretty cool when they launched, glad to see someone pick it up. I wonder how well they will work these days, though, consider that many email clients (esp Outlook) have gone backwards in terms of supporting javascript.

By: ch

ch — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:52:34 +0000

I used Zaplets back in 2000 and really liked it. Thought it is a great tool to levearage emails for simple workflows and information aggregation. Always wonder why they weren’t more successful.