Just a quick warning — I've had a business that had the name "gram" in its title, and while it was sort of related to Instagram, Facebook has been going after domains (and 100% of all trademark registration attempts) that contain the word "gram". I had a trademark application in the final phase, with only a few days left until it became registered, when Facebook called up and basically said: shut down, or we'll sue you this afternoon and you'll have to fight this out in California. Even though they did not own the right to the word "gram" at the time, I basically caved as my financial options were limited.
If you think this could become a big thing, either be ready for the battle and have lots of money, or rebrand now while you still can.
I know this is a hard pill to swallow, especially after you've registered the domain and everything — and it likely won't be a problem for you for a good while, but in the rare case of this hitting product hunt, or techcrunch, you may run into issues later down the road.
Hmm. Had a client a few years back with the word "face" at the start of their name. Facebook predictably sued them. I sent their counsel a response containing simply,"Suck my [expletive]" and a citation to the USTP manual on trademarks (website has changed, but the same material can now be found at https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-1400d...) and never heard back from them.
Well, I had a call with them (or, their law firm), and they referred me to a few ongoing cases where some startups were (rightfully so) battling them, but one of those legal battles had been going on for three years already, and the underlying message was pretty clear: Facebook has no problem lawyering anyone to death over time. I'm not in the trademark business, so I opted to move away and have a few articles written about the incident for the record. That's it.
My point was that it sounds like you lost because you didn't even try to fight them, which is what their strategy was relying on.
I can't comment on the other cases or why they were ongoing, but the only cases I know where Facebook didn't fold immediately when challenged by legal counsel were ones were the startups were actually trying to ride on Facebook's trademarked coattails and naming their product/using colors/fonts/etc similar to Facebook so as to trick consumers into thinking their product was affiliated in some way with facebook. Those are fights that Facebook won't back down on, nor should they.
"Even though they did not own the right to the word "gram" at the time, I basically caved as my financial options were limited." Great justice system in USA. The land of the ... money.
Pretty much what I told the main lawyer there — he was circling around words, and I had waited for my bombshell moment and finally said what I'd been preparing for quite a while: "but... looking at all the trademarks, I can see you guys own 'insta, instagram, facebook,' [...a few more] but... I just can't seem to find 'gram', can you refer me to a filing or registration number?" ... silence.
That moment, sitting at home in my jogging pants, I thought I'd literally just beat a tough-nut San Francisco corporate lawyer in his own game and got away with it.
After a long pause he basically said, "yes, there's nothing filed yet, but we'll get to that, it's already being prepared. Regardless, we'd have to file this issue in San Francisco this afternoon, so you'd have to come over and sort this out with our firm in court locally, over the next few months, or years."
And I said I'll call him back. And then caved in. What can you do.
Thank you! I have unsuccessfully battled with Snap too
I haved an app (closed now) - SwapChat before they go to Russian app store(
And i know about "gram" but i have this domain... So silly I just think may be go to the store with some another name.. I'm really don't know what to do with "gram"
For now, I wouldn't worry. But if you get the sense that you are gaining more users than expected, and this starts earning you any actual money, then I'd consider preparing a rebrand. Or, of course, if you're getting into investment talks — any due diligence will/should bring this up and put a stop to it until resolved. Until then, I would possibly ignore it for now (unless it's an easy move).
Not sure why you have the downvotes, it's clearly very unethical & hypocritical for FB to go after all names with "gram" -- even if there's no photo related features in the app.
Looks nice! gonna give it a go. Was looking for a place to drop some thoughts, and wasn't willing to pay a big buck for something like svbtle. I really love their kudos thingy though.
SSL on the register page would be nice/necessary, on all subdomains... easy nowadays with letsencrypt.
Maybe I don't understand how this works exactly, but I couldn't find any article to read (using Medium's homepage as my reference). The homepage contained language selector and a 'playground' hyperlink above it, and clicking on it does nothing.
It's first public beta and i want to catch as many feedbacks as possible before going forward. Most activity from first adopters on http://ru.tgr.am On others languages - it may contain only auto-translated welcome post(
I got it, thank you. Will get back with my thoughts on the interface.
Edit: Looks decent for an unfinished/early stage project. I especially love how you can browse without requiring JavaScript. I feel this should be a hit among minimalism enthusiasts, like the readers of Zen Habits[0], for example.
Thanks for the feedback!
Error messages should be more clear, and I fix the link, thank you
Individual accounts were a difficult decision. But I think it's good overall. For example, I can just move the folder "ko" to a Korean server and run the typegram. This strange solution (total separation) seems to me extremely interesting
This is really easy on the eyes. I am loving the minimalism. Away from the frenzy and noise. This lets you focus on the content. Kudos to the designer.
Yes, of course, you totally right, i need rss feed (https://github.com/recoilme/tgram/issues/10) json - api and many other things.. I work on this project around six month - and this post - i don't know how to say it..
It's very hard to stay motivated in silence..
I want to find more contributors/early adopters.
One thing I've wanted from a blogging platform is the ability to include iframes for webgl content. I took a look at the github and don't see any iframe refs.
Does anybody know of a good blogging service with this capability?
Yes, this project heavily inspired by telegram (channels), telegra.ph(editor) and medium. Is starting from writing full medium clone) After that - i start again, now from an empty list. I try don't copy/paste and think many about the balance of futures/simplicity
EDIT: Nevermind, realized I was on the test domain instead of the `en` domain. All is well. :)
Odd... I made an account (@keb) and made a post while at work, but as I got home and attempted to log in, it seems like my account had been deleted. Just remade it.
Anyway, I have no experience with Go, but I'll definitely consider as I play around with this more. :)
Key: 'Article.Body' Error:Field validation for 'Body' failed on the 'min' tag Key: 'Article.OgImage' Error:Field validation for 'OgImage' failed on the 'url' tag
For reference, they're not just going after Instagram-related businesses: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/instagram...
If you think this could become a big thing, either be ready for the battle and have lots of money, or rebrand now while you still can.
I know this is a hard pill to swallow, especially after you've registered the domain and everything — and it likely won't be a problem for you for a good while, but in the rare case of this hitting product hunt, or techcrunch, you may run into issues later down the road.