All the good ideas get stolen and re-used

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Interesting:

Seriously, Dan Lowenherz is a “crook” and a “scumbag” who “plagiarized his way through Yale”? I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to look at the writing styles and “like” patterns on the comments and guess how many of them are from sock puppets.

News flash, guys: WaitingRoom and Adore.ly didn’t invent this concept either. A quick Google search turns up several similar websites and even a patent application from 2007. In fact, men have been signing their names as “Secret Admirer” and hoping their crushes would ask them about it ever since flower delivery was invented.

While I’m at it, I’d like to point out that the idea of taking ideas and improving on them isn’t new either, and is in fact what our patent system and anti-trust laws are based on. In fact, SOME OF THE VERY PRODUCTS YOU USE EVERY DAY MAY BE BASED ON EARLIER IDEAS.

Apple “stole” the graphical user interface from Xerox PARC.

Google “stole” the idea of searching the web from WebCrawler.

Google also “stole” the idea of web-based email from Hotmail.

Google also “stole” instant messaging from AOL, who in turn “stole” it from ICQ.

Zynga didn’t invent Mafia Wars-style games, nor did they invent viral farming games.

Gameloft is well-known for taking games that aren’t on mobile devices (or likely to be anytime soon) and making their own versions. Some examples: their takes on Zelda 64, Starcraft, Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo. Most reviews of Gameloft games contain the words “X is an awesome clone of X”.
The point here is that if your idea is any good, one or more people are already working on it or will copy your idea the moment they see it. Jaiku did it to Twitter and failed. Yammer did it to Twitter and succeeded. Somehow, Twitter managed to survive. I suspect it was because they kept building their momentum instead of posting vitriolic comments on TechCrunch. Although I can understand why someone would be upset over getting out-matched and out-classed by a solo developer writing one-off Facebook applications “as a joke” in his spare time.