

How Huddle ripped its name back from Google+ - gheldean
http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/21/google-huddle-messenger-mcloughlin/

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larrik
"Trademarks and patents have picked up a bad reputation in recent months
thanks to patent trolls that actively sue larger companies as a way to make
money."

Huh? What on earth do trademarks have to do with patent trolls?

Trademarks are easily the most sensible and best-designed area of IP law there
is, even if they have issues.

The only trademark-related controversy I can remember on HN is over "App
Store", which is a gray area no matter which side you fall on.

~~~
freshhawk
Came here to say exactly that but you beat me to it, strikes me as an attempt
to crowbar in some semi-related patent stuff to pad out the article.

The writer has published two articles today, this one and a 4 page one about
Diablo. Four articles yesterday, 3 the day before, 4 the day before that.

I picked a few out covering topics I know something about and they seem to be
just press release + wikipedia + a few of the top google results mashed into a
blog post.

For example: 2 days ago there was an article about Netflix's new game rentals
having a "short shelf life" because of "cloud gaming" being just around the
corner which was pretty laughably ignorant. It strikes me as a way to use the
netflix news to push cloud gaming because someone involved is an investor in
some cloud gaming platform. The only alternative is stupidity which is an
improvement over a complete lack of ethics, but I can't imagine a realistic
type of ignorance or fanboyism that would lead to someone writing this article
honestly.

~~~
freshhawk
strangely relevant: [http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/21/video-blogging-vs-
traditio...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/21/video-blogging-vs-traditional-
journalism/)

a rambling video chat that seemed done more to get a chance to promote the
videoconference sponsor than because anyone had anything to actually say.

No mention whatsoever of journalism or how it differs from just writing. The
closest they got was one mention (by the author of the piece this thread is
about) of how nice it is to not have to deal with that annoying fact checking
thing like he did at reuters.

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abraham
"How Huddle ripped its name back from Google+"

“They very quickly came back to us with a message that they would be renaming
the service, although this was ‘an internal business decision’ and nothing to
do with our trademark ownership.”

Not the most apt title.

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twhaples
Meh. It's as generic of a term as "Windows"; why can't every service
everywhere be able to have "huddles" if they feel like it? That would make too
much sense....

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drivebyacct2
It's actually called "Messenger" now, and on Android resides right next to the
(relatively) new Facebook messaging app, also aptly named "Messenger".

