
Xobni Acquires IP From Failed Web 1.0 Startup FireDrop - brett
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/07/xobni-acquires-ip-from-failed-web-10-startup-firedrop/
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prakash
Wow! I remember talking to one of their employees way back in 2000, that guy
mentioned how cool Zaplet (the technology) was. Never thought about it till
today.

Note to self: Revisit all the companies that went belly up including the
ycombinator ones

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prakash
Adam/Matt/Gabor: Who brought up the existence of Zaplet and the idea of buying
their patents -- was it Vinod since he was at KPCB at that time or Jeff?

BTW: Good move.

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brezina
This has been done for several months. I finally got off my ass and closed the
deal when Vinod woke me up at 7am with a phone call saying "buy those patents,
they will do big things for Xobni."

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JayNeely
Xobni has been an excellent utility, and these patents could both enhance that
strategy, or allow them to bridge into a medium strategy.

As a utility, Xobni works for any user, and with all of their stored e-mails,
regardless of whether any of their contacts also use it. They could use
FireDrop’s tech to add better visualizations for information contained within
the e-mail, which has been their core focus so far.

If they instead start offering functionality that only works between contacts
who both have Xobni, then we’re seeing a big shift in their business strategy;
it suddenly provides an incentive (other than, “hey, this is awesome”) for
users to encourage their coworkers and friends to add Xobni. The best thing
they could do to enhance that strategy is streamline the installation process
even further.

That strategy may also provide hope for Xobni compatibility for Thunderbird,
as their business goal becomes adoption, rather than having strategic value
for a specific platform.

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redorb
low 100k's ... for 10 patents and not to be sued later when your worth 50-90mm
, sounds like a solid move.

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axod
Still a shame people have to do this to implement blindingly obvious ideas.

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bluelu
or move your company to a country where software patents are not legally
enforceable (eg. the rest of the world)

Also you can not be sued for using someone's patents. You can be sued if they
give you notice that you are using their patents, and you then continue
violating their patents.

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Tichy
Just enable Javascript in emails. Seems like Microsoft was on the right track
after all.

Or wait - wasn't that the main reason why everybody hates Microsoft now?

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epi0Bauqu
I used Zaplets in 2000 to help pick a name for my first startup. I remember
using them and then seeing the Venturebeat 100M thing and thinking what the
hell?

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skmurphy
key quote for me "Bonforte says reducing email threads down to a single active
message is a key factor in solving the email...he thinks Xobni will eventually
be able to do that with the IP they’ve just acquired" There are a lot of ways
to do this, e-mail widgets is just one.

