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Facebook's 'Paper' Now Available for Download Despite Protests From FiftyThree
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It's an app for Facebook. Why would you want to do that if you don't have an account?
You can tell Loren brichter (Of letterpress fame) made this. So much more fluid than the official app. Played with it for five minutes and deleted the old one, even though I won't be using the news features.
It's still very much "1.0" though. I'd like to see a list view. Cards makes more sense for news than it does for FB statuses. And there should be a "+" at the top to post. It's too common an action to be buried.
It's still very much "1.0" though. I'd like to see a list view. Cards makes more sense for news than it does for FB statuses. And there should be a "+" at the top to post. It's too common an action to be buried.
I trademarked the letter 'i' and the word 'I'. You may no longer use it freely. The license fee is $0.001 for the letter 'i' and $0.01 for the word 'I'.
Oh you mean like 'Amazon' and the thousands more companies that own everyday words?
Don't get me wrong, I can see why FiftyThree would be unhappy about Facebook's name choice but he does not own the word paper.
Granted, I know Candy Crush and that whole "candy" debacle is ongoing but still. One single person can't own a word like that. It sets one hell of a standard.
Edit to help:
Link
Need I tell you 53 didn't create the first paper app in iTunes afaik. Just type paper and you will see how many.
Also, you can't own paper. If they could I would bring an app called pen or pencil and not let anyone use the word I guess lol
All these is just 53 trying to grow their user base using free news.
It's good but not as good as Flipboard. Great first try though. I'm sure they will improve upon it.
Are there more FB employees here?
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Hmmm, so the best solution is to take some existing name for a new app.
How? You can't actually add RSS feeds to it. IMO Paper is a better FB client , and a terrible news reader. Pulse stays.
are you able to post your location from this app? similar to how nearby works on the official facebook app?
I'm not sure Paper by Fifty Three has a case. The purpose of trademark law is to prevent confusion. How exactly will someone who wants to draw on their iPad be confused by an app that's mean to curate news?
Nailed it.
I love Paper. Great App... but if they actually sue, they're boneheads.
If I had an App called xyz, and a web site with over a billion members published a program with the same name, I'd be ordering a new Corvette, just based upon the potential boost in people searching for xyz in the App Store.
Might this help the developers from FiftyThree? Might customers discover the now 'other' Paper? If FB launched a drawing or sketching app named Paper I could see how it would be a problem. But this is a whole other category of app.
The reality here is that Fifty-Three could have easily created a more broadly defensible trademark, had they been wise enough to use an invented word instead of a common word.
For example, these are broadly-defensible trademarks: Evernote, Zynga, Spotify. Words like Paper are much harder to defend. Likewise, Glympse is very defensible, but Glimpse would not have been.
Meanwhile, 53's new stylus, Pencil, is every bit as weak as Paper was. They may be shooting themselves in the foot, but at least they have great aim: they hit the target every time.
It seems like 53 knows this, though. If they believed their trademark was genuinely being infringed they would have responded with a legal notice, not an open letter. This is more of an appeal to common courtesy and/or Google's stated "don't be evil" policy. Essentially their argument is "Gee, guys, you could have been nice about it."
This is night-and-day different from the Candy Crush Saga vs The Banner Saga dust-up. There, you have a case of one side asserting broad ownership of a common English word, and the other side using it in a non-infringing way totally consistent with its standard English meaning.
Here, there's no infringement and nothing to infringe. There's merely an option to be polite, which Google chose to decline. You can decide for yourself if that's "evil" or not, but it's perfectly legal.**
** I am not a lawyer, but I have Joe Pesci on speed dial
For example, these are broadly-defensible trademarks: Evernote, Zynga, Spotify. Words like Paper are much harder to defend. Likewise, Glympse is very defensible, but Glimpse would not have been.
Meanwhile, 53's new stylus, Pencil, is every bit as weak as Paper was. They may be shooting themselves in the foot, but at least they have great aim: they hit the target every time.
It seems like 53 knows this, though. If they believed their trademark was genuinely being infringed they would have responded with a legal notice, not an open letter. This is more of an appeal to common courtesy and/or Google's stated "don't be evil" policy. Essentially their argument is "Gee, guys, you could have been nice about it."
This is night-and-day different from the Candy Crush Saga vs The Banner Saga dust-up. There, you have a case of one side asserting broad ownership of a common English word, and the other side using it in a non-infringing way totally consistent with its standard English meaning.
Here, there's no infringement and nothing to infringe. There's merely an option to be polite, which Google chose to decline. You can decide for yourself if that's "evil" or not, but it's perfectly legal.**
** I am not a lawyer, but I have Joe Pesci on speed dial
The notion that fifty-three should have exclusive rights to the word Paper is asinine. Of course, they shouldn't have exclusive rights to the company name 53, either.
The interesting thing is that Facebook's naming choice for this app can only *help* 53, since there will be plenty of people who have never heard of 53 or their Paper app who will now search for Paper (looking for the Facebook app) who will now happen across 53's app.
The interesting thing is that Facebook's naming choice for this app can only *help* 53, since there will be plenty of people who have never heard of 53 or their Paper app who will now search for Paper (looking for the Facebook app) who will now happen across 53's app.
So then how does Zynga have a case with the word "candy"?
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Well, using that logic, the Beatles didn't have a case against Apple Computer, because in the Beatle's case, it was a record label. Which can't be confused with a computer maker.
I agree. It seems real nice but it won't replace Zite or Pulse, two apps I currently use.