[zemote]

I agree, silly rants like this is absurd and really doesn't do any good and is not productive. Execution is key. I'm little passionate about my startup and that is why I replied. I never said he stole our idea. I said "almost" exact replica. Facebook borrows from twitter, eduset borrows from pownce, we borrow from twitter, facebook, friendfeed.

[zemote]

Yes, we can co-exist as healthy competitors. I'm usually not one for silly rants, my passion has gotten the better of me tonight. Edmodo, Eduset, and The Education Community as a whole is better served by us putting our energies into execution of our startups.

[zemote]

Still doesn't mean we aren't going to compete and rest on our laurels :)

[fuzzmeister]

That's great to hear. I'm glad we've put this behind us.

[Maro]

Based on what you've written here, as an outsider: Your audience is not the HN audience. What people think of you here in terms of copying is completely irrelevant. (Also, copying is fine. Everybody copies, sometimes entire business ideas.) Your customers, who I assume are school administrators and teachers don't care which came first or who copies who. If you look at school admins, they probably don't even care about features, to win them over you need a good salesmen. Also, X always pointing out how he came first and his is better then Y is just good marketing, because whenever people see Y they also see X and are more likely to compare the two. Saying X is better is hardly evil, it's just marketing. (Remember the Apple vs. PC ads? Remember the news about how Microsoft wants to build stores right next to Apple stores? You're living it.) In the end I think you will need to sell packages to schools to make real money, and in that case it's not even going to be about features but about a good salesman with connections. That's what you get for making a product aimed at the goverment. Cheers.