

Snapjoy’s Flickraft Promised To Rescue Flickr Photos — Until It Was Blocked - michaeldwan
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/snapjoys-flickraft-promised-to-rescue-flickr-photos-until-it-was-blocked/

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shadowmatter
"We built the system to stay within the limits of 3600 calls per hour, however
it seems that a surge of imports pushed it over the threshold before we could
throttle it back."

It sounds like they designed it to stay within the rate limits, but had a bug,
so it didn't.

"We’re a bit surprised that the key was disabled almost immediately after we
reached the limit."

Is it crazy to think that Flickr abides by the rate limiting they advertise?
Isn't that just like "truth in advertising"? The onus is on you to stay within
that rate.

"We thought about creating a new api key but didn’t know if that would be
flagged as abuse."

Is there really any part of your gut that says no? Do you think Flickr would
implement a rate limiting policy if they were okay with people creating an
unlimited number of keys so that it serves no point?

Sorry to be so negative, but... Is this really news?

------
brandon
michaeldwan, why are you posting techcrunch linkbait here? Since you were
quoted as saying that you know your exporter went over the API limit, this
seems like non-news. It's unlikely that you were even blocked by a human.

EDIT: it's pretty disappointing to see a YC partner jumping on the linkbait
bandwagon: <http://twitter.com/garrytan/status/167050449747312640>

~~~
robryan
Seems like this kind of an article will get the whole thing more attention and
increase the user uptake of this offer.

~~~
dangrossman
This whole thing says to me:

* We're willing to spread rumors about our competitors, and rip off their IP

* We're willing to manufacture controversy to play the victim when there's no actual controversy

* We will use every media channel we can to amplify fake controversy to get more eyeballs

* Our service doesn't actually work; we DOS'd our competitor until it broke

I won't be moving my photos there.

~~~
chairface
I haven't read a whole lot on this - could you clarify on the ripping off of
IP?

edit: I should have read the whole comment thread first - nevermind.

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alrs
"We’re a bit surprised that the key was disabled almost immediately after we
reached the limit. "

YCombinator founders are developing a reputation for weasel-word bullshit.
Ditch the victim act.

~~~
patrickod
It's not unreasonable to think that companies would warn you before cutting
off your API key. Any time I've ever integrated with a 3rd party API and come
close to reaching their limit I've gotten friendly emails from devs asking if
they can be of assistance.

~~~
true_religion
That's kind of hit or miss.

I wouldn't be surprised if a small or new company emailed me about nearing the
API limit. They're trying to build a relationship.

But a Fortune 500 like Yahoo or Google? They couldn't care less about someone
trying to use their free API. You're just one of thousands to them.

~~~
patrickod
It's easily automated. It's still a nice thing to do for your users. Also just
because you're a fortune 500 doesn't mean you shouldn't take steps to build
relationships with your users. The same attitude works in reverse. You have
freedom of choice with the service you use.

~~~
true_religion
I think the email is the first part of building the relationship. Sure the
first email is automated, but you can't call it building a relationship unless
there's a real human being on that end trying to understand what's going
wrong.

~~~
patrickod
Agreed. Trying to pass automated emails as personal never works. It is,
however, a step in the right direction. Knowing that a dev is looking after
the API users is somewhat comforting.

------
swang
What TechCrunch fails to mention in its linkbaity headline is that it was
blocked for exceeding the API limit calls of 3600/hr and was therefore
blocked. I do not see how this is news at all. Most likely the article was
written just to portray Flickr/Yahoo as a company that "banned" Snapjoy from
its services.

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natrius
At the very least, the name of the tool is trademark infringement and the
derivative logo is copyright infringement.

If the main goal behind the suspension was user retention rather than just
bypassing the API limits, whoever made the decision chose poorly. Flickr users
who find out about this will know that it will be difficult to get their
photos out if they decide to use something else in the future, so they have a
greater incentive to seek alternatives beforehand.

~~~
true_religion
The name of the tool is Flick Raft, two words.

Logos are typically tried under trademark, not copyright protection.

This is a good thing for Flicr because trying to claim that having two colors
in your logo highlighting the text is something unique to your logo wouldn't
make a very good fight in the copyright court.

~~~
ceejayoz
C'mon. The logo on the page was the Flickr logo with "aft" appended. If you
made a drink in a red can with the Coca-Cola logo plus a couple extra letters
on the end you'd get legitimately sued into oblivion too.

~~~
true_religion
R+aft is an actual word.

If I created a drink called Coca-Colada, I'd probably have a legitimate
grievance if someone claimed I was ripping off Coca-Cola.

Or how about a bowl to wash off coca plants, marketed as a Coca Collander? Are
they still going to sue me into oblivion?

~~~
ceejayoz
> If I created a drink called Coca-Colada, I'd probably have a legitimate
> grievance if someone claimed I was ripping off Coca-Cola.

Not if you used their logo verbatim in yours. Look at the screenshot
TechCrunch features:
[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/flickraf...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/flickraft.jpg?w=288)

> Or how about a bowl to wash off coca plants, marketed as a Coca Collander?
> Are they still going to sue me into oblivion?

Again, if you used their logo, probably. A collander isn't in direct
competition with a soft drink, though, so it's a pretty poor analogy.

~~~
true_religion
That isn't the Flickr logo _verbatim_.

Artistically---its not even the same font, nor the same colors (not all blues
and light pinks are created equal).

It's apparent just by glancing at it that its not the same thing. Any argument
that it'll create confusion in the marketplace is null. Even the nature of the
service further differenciates FlickRaft from Flickr.

Did you really look at FlickRaft, and think "gracious, Flickr want's me to
move from their servers to Snapjoy!"

Do you think anyone ever could?

If there's no problem there, then there's no trademark violation. All that's
left is calling this a copyright issue.

However with a word logo, there's only 4 points to its artwork:

1\. The actual words (Different in the case of FlickRaft)

2\. The font (also different)

3\. The color combination (reminiscent but actually different)

4\. The pattern (there's just two colors, a protectable pattern this does not
make).

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switz
Their stuff didn't work? Flickr's worked _exactly_ as it was described to.
Obviously this is a huge PR piece, but it doesn't really make me want them
over Flickr.

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jseliger
1) That's certainly lame on the part of Flickr.

2) I find it odd that Snapjoy is offering this at a time it isn't accepting
new accounts: I clicked "sign up" and entered an e-mail address to be notified
about when they're expanding.

3) I hadn't heard of Snapjoy before this story.

~~~
dangrossman
Suspending an API key after that user exceeds a published rate limit sounds
perfectly reasonable. We have no reason to believe it wasn't automated and
temporary, yet. That's not "lame".

The limit was 3600 API calls per hour. They moved 125,000 photos per hour. I
don't know how many calls that involves, but it appears well over the limit.

~~~
jpren
You can pull up to 500 photos per flickr API call, so it's possible to fetch
up to 180,000 photos per hour while staying under the limit.

------
danso
I gave Snapjoy a try because of the HN link. It seemed to work fine. The
pricing doesn't seem feasible for my uses and this kind of wink-wink behavior
doesn't at all boost my opinion. See HN discussion about Path's "oops, our
bad" thing.

