

How to get on TechCrunch - karjaluoto
http://www.youtube.com/user/speakhumanbook#p/u/0/dhQ48A_yql0

======
karjaluoto
I'd just like to quickly make note of something.

I'm a big fan and regular reader here, and as a result, I'm very careful about
what I post on HN. Lately, though, I've posted a few times with links to this
video channel.

Each time I do so, I feel a twinge of hesitation. I don't want to pollute the
site, but, at the same time, I think there are stories here that might be
helpful to the HN community.

If any of you feel that the content isn't appropriate (or that I'm linking to
it too frequently), please let me know. I certainly don't want to overextend
my welcome here!

Happy Saturday!

~~~
bugs
I really thought the topic was okay and fine but personally it was impossible
to watch the spliced upped video being shown so I just switched to another tab
and listened.

~~~
karjaluoto
I'm still working on sorting out how these are edited. Most are linear and
shot in one take with no editing. In order to get longer stories into a
tighter time frame, though, I've been playing with compressing the gaps.

So far I'm unsure of how to approach this. I've been casually asking friends
on Twitter and Facebook to view and comment on their thoughts. Most seem split
right down the middle, with half preferring them without edits, and the other
half liking the ones with.

But, this is very much the way we've urged others to approach such things. Put
something out, test it, augment, refine, repeat. (Perhaps it's "agile"
storytelling.) With each one I think I'm figuring some things out. Hopefully
in videos to come they feel more natural.

Thanks for giving it a listen!

~~~
MrHyde
Perhaps you could post an unedited version and a version where you compress
the gaps?

~~~
karjaluoto
That's not a bad idea, but then I'd have to spend even more time on these
videos, and my wife would really hate that. (I'm home far too little these
days as it stands.)

~~~
jamesbritt
"I'm home far too little these days as it stands."

Well, the solution there is to be sure to have a complete development setup at
_home_ as well.

Who could possibly complain then?

:)

------
dpapathanasiou
I think a better title for this is: "What to do when a larger company
infringes your trademark", since it was more about having a clever response to
the name similarity than being featured on techcrunch per se.

~~~
karjaluoto
I had contemplated that as well, but in other instances I don't think it would
have played out the same way. (If the same thing were repeated, it might not
work--this one just timed out nicely.) So, for many in a trademark dispute,
lawyers may still be the way to go.

My reason for referencing TechCrunch (specifically here) is that we tried
doggedly to get on it with one of our startups. It proved to be very difficult
to do, regardless of who we approached or how. We finally did get on for that
project, but it took an awful lot of prodding and wrangling.

This one, however, was done in a pretty casual way, and I just tossed Michael
an email (on what was probably a rather slow day). It did strike me as notable
that no matter what I said regarding the startup, none of it was as easy to
get his attention with as this was.

And I suppose that's the whole point. People like stories, not feature lists
or pitches.

------
tptacek
These guys _really_ didn't have a legal case against Discovery? Sure,
Discovery has a lot of lawyers. But they also have a lot of money. Where's
'grellas when you need him?

~~~
karjaluoto
Our trademark is a Canadian one, not an American one. We could have opted to
get one in the US when we first registered, but cash was limited, so it wasn't
really an option. Plus, trademarks are like country domains--getting one
everywhere just becomes impractical (unless you're MS).

The second aspect of the challenge was that they weren't in a directly
competing area. We build websites and create little startup projects; we make
no television content. As such, we would have had a pretty weak case on our
hands.

And besides, this was much more fun. ;-)

BTW: Who's 'grellas?

~~~
tptacek
Bay area tech lawyer; one of the people on HN who I read via RSS on their
SearchYC comments; invariably awesome.

I am sorry about what happened to you guys. We're a small-ish firm too and I
can only imagine how pissed I'd be if our name got Smashlabbed.

~~~
karjaluoto
Thanks for that--I appreciate it!

We were pretty "choked" about the situation initially. Honestly, though, it
all worked out pretty well, and the whole "smash lab sucks" thing proved to be
a rather interesting experiment.

And in the meanwhile, we receive some pretty interesting mail and phone calls.
(Even a letter from an inmate who had an "idea" for the show.)

------
petercooper
karjaluoto already sorta mentioned it in a comment on here, but a key aspect
of this is that _usually_ (but not always!) trademarks only cover names for a
certain type of product or within a certain area of industry - the main goal
of trademarks is to prevent consumer confusion. (For example, for many years
in the UK there used to be both a lemon juice and a kitchen cleaner called
Jif. The kitchen cleaner only became Cif to match the European brand name.)

If you created a fabric conditioner called "Microsoft" with a radically unique
logo, then Microsoft _probably_ wouldn't have a good trademark case, but they
could cause one hell of a fuss and most likely bankrupt the defendant from
legal costs alone. This guy and his company almost certainly couldn't do that
to Discovery and since they're not using the trademark in the same line of
business, the chances of them winning and getting any costs back would be low.

~~~
karjaluoto
Precisely.

In fact, on the day of the video, we had started with the discussion, "do we
change the name of our company?" This, however, turned out to be a much more
enjoyable option.

It's a little like the "Michael Bolton" bit in the movie Office Space.
Although the singer (in this fictional setting) knew little of the
inconvenience caused to the fellow who he shared a name with, it became a
nuisance nevertheless.

That was the spot we were in. We didn't feel that Discovery had done anything
deliberate here. They likely just came up with a name (or the producers of the
program did) and used it. They may have seen that someone had the URL and was
operating with it, but didn't think much more of it.

In a way, I'm quite happy that the program is so bad. (Well, from what I hear
at least--I've only watched a brief snippet.) Being so poorly received means
that the program will likely not be renewed. Sure, it will live on in
syndication for another few years, but we'll likely outlive it.

If we would have been called Mythbusters... we would have been completely
screwed. ;-)

~~~
jbenz
Maybe Discovery chose the name SmashLab in order to (subconsciously?) piggy
back on the popularity of their other show, CashCab. I mean, they rhyme.

~~~
karjaluoto
Could be. It sure will make the next round of programs tricky, though, won't
it?

\- TrashFlab \- BrashGrab \- GashBlab

Oh... it's going to be ugly. ;-)

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bartl
Example of a small error on YouTube's part: "more info" and "less info" shows
exactly the same info text.

That is something they might want to detect.

------
iag
or you can just pay for it... [http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/an-
apology-to-our-reade...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/an-apology-to-
our-readers/)

