[mikepence]

I was the project manager at Kickstarter during its initial phase of development, during the time that we went from a single requirements document and some mock-ups to a functional site. We weren't ripping anybody off.

The boring truth is that we took Perry Chen's idea, and, like any software project, continued to refine and adjust our vision of what the site should be, and what the user experience should be, based on the imagined needs of some hypothetical users.

What we ended up building was only remotely similar to what our requirements started out with, and the project continued to morph after those initial stages, to what it is today.

I am sorry that this guy's startup did not take off as Kickstarter has. Making libelous claims about the work of others, though, is no way to be.

[rythie]

I'd have to say I agree - It's quite easy for someone to come up with the same idea as you and not even be aware that you exist(ed).

Blog posts and comments about my startup (http://FriendBinder.com) often think we copied FriendFeed, SocialThing or some other site though the reality is that those sites didn't exist when we started early in 2007 (or were in stealth at least).

That's life I'm afraid.

[rotw]

I don't use any of the three services, but the landing page of FriendBinder made me more curious then FriendFeed's. However, it just looks a tad unprofessional, with faded looking colours, unsubtle shadows & gradients, and heavy use of Arial. I'd really get a professional designer to tweak that a bit, I think you might profit from that.

Or, if you don't want to spend money: Brighter, more friendly colours, replace Arial with Helvetica, drastically cut down on the italic, draw some subtle, but clear seperations of the containers. But keep the basic concept intact, I really like it.

[rythie]

Thanks for the suggestions, I've started to move us to Helvetica (except logos for now) and cut down on italics. Do you have a site, twitter etc.? my details are in my profile.