[pothibo]

I really don't like this opportunistic BS. These guys yesterday struggled with their launch and you took that opportunity to tell the world how to build a better clone?

Cheap shot & I hope someone did the same when you guys launched and I hope it made you struggle.

[gk1]

I think it's brilliant. The original discussion about Magic included comments and questions about what's _powering_ it. For example, people wondered how the texts got routed, whether it's automated or manual, how fulfillment is done, etc. Clearly there was some curiosity about what powers these types of apps, as further evidenced by this post's frontpage status.

[MatthewB]

Exactly our purpose. We want to show other businesses how to do what Magic did (at least the texting piece).

Execution is everything though.

[pothibo]

It's nothing like you describe. They go to great length to say how they love Magic to turn around and tell the world how to do build a better clone.

Did they write about the routing? No. They advertised their product piggybacking on a frontpage story.

Look, if the same thing would happen but Magic would be an established company, I'd say it's brilliant, but it's not. And it matters.

[stanmancan]

How are they teaching someone to make a BETTER clone? All they're teaching is how to communicate via text message through a web interface. The method of communication isn't what makes Magic magic.

[MatthewB]

We loved their implementation of SMS and so did a lot of other people. We aren't saying "here's how to build a better version" as own main point but rather, if you want to add this type of service to your own business, you can easily. You can definitely use our service to clone the functionality of Magic as well.

Opportunistic? Maybe. But we love SMS and we love Magic so why not show other companies how to apply that awesomeness to their own business?

[pothibo]

The fact that you acknowledge the opportunistic part of my comment proves my point. Yes, when you love something so damn much, you don't go out there and tell people how to build the same thing in a better way, using their name.

It's hilarious that I'm being downvoted for being exactly right.

[techpeace]

You're being downvoted for comments like this: "I hope someone did the same when you guys launched and I hope it made you struggle."

The fact is that you're freaking out about something nobody else here really cares about. "Piggybacking" on the popularity of something else is a tried and true marketing technique. When McDonald's tweets something featuring a trending hashtag that's only tangentially related, they're "piggybacking" on its popularity. Magic itself is "piggybacking" on the popularity of the services it navigates for you.

More importantly, this isn't going to hurt Magic one bit. You could build a "clone" of magic yourself in less than a day: set up a stripe account, build a low-fi landing page, and own a phone. Boom. You're done. Hell, you could build a Sonar clone on Twilio without too much effort (nb: I've never used the service, but I'm referring to the basic feature set). The trick would be making the same kind of splash that Magic made, and therein lies the challenge.

In summary: calm down and you'll stop losing so many Internet points.

[mod]

I don't think it's about building a clone, and I'd certainly hope that magic has some features in place to help automate things--that "magic" part is totally missing from this.

This is really just slapping the "magic" name on "sms-based customer service." That's entirely different from magic.

[freehunter]

The Internet is built around finding out how to make clones of technical implementations. Hell, half the world is built around that. Technical implementations are the easy part. The hard part is getting the entire business right, including sales and marketing and customer service. The 'magic' of Magic isn't how to read and respond to text messages from your PC, it's being able to navigate basically any third-party vendor imaginable to fulfill a customer's request. That can't be copied with a Twilio app.

[bmelton]

If magic's only chance for success was in ensuring that nobody else could figure out how they were doing it, they weren't going to be in the marketplace for very long anyway.

For reference, almost everybody knows how to wash their car, but that hasn't put car washes out of business. McDonald's doesn't succeed because nobody knows how to make burgers, or that their special sauce is thousand island.

Restaurants, maid services, landscaping, etc., all benefit from the same aims -- if they can provide convenience to the users willing to pay for it, and do so in a way that compels those users to keep paying for it, there will be space in the marketplace for them.