Zude.com - Drag it, Drop it, Share it

ZCubes have been doing all of this and way more since last year! Check them out at http://www.zcubes.com.

ZCubes is the world’s first website where you can seamlessly browse, search, edit, paint, draw, hand-write, watch, listen, publish, type, print, network, teach, learn, and work.

I encourage everyone to check out zCubes, yourminis, Netvibes and all the others. But please also check out Zude.com — and then decide for yourself. Its hard to believe that anyone has been doing “way more than this and more” without really knowing what “way more” is…

Zude is a company that has been misusing a lot of the marketing material, trademarks and terminology from ZCubes website (”Do It All”, “The Web, Your Way, Now”, ZCubes (as Z[C]u[d]e, ZSpace (as Z[ude]Scape), among many others.)

Since ZCubes have patented/patents pending on many of its technologies, and are the true innovators in all of the web creation concepts at the ZCubes website, it will be interesting how the blatant copying will work for Zude in the long run. Zude is too small (only 5 million) to worry about or go after for now.

The true lack of creativity at Zude is shameful - maybe we can term it as a lack of true ethics or depth. In their video, they called themselves innovators, but they should have called themselves copiers.

They have even made claims about cross-platform drag-drop (as patent pending, :-)) as something unique - which is already being done by several players like JetPack, Yahoo-Photo Sharing, ImageShack (as well as advanced versions of ZCubes).

Though Zude has replicated some functionalities from ZCubes, but it is still only a tiny fraction of what ZCubes does. ZCubes is a total innovation company, and will continue to make the most fascinating products - that may copycats (like Zude) will try to mimic. At this time, we will need to see how to manage the confusion in branding that Zude is trying to create needs to be dealt with.

Wow, Amy! We must have really struck a nerve! And clearly you’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about it! Just one question: how can you make a statement about lack of creativity when you’ve never even seen the product? I for one cannot comment on the richness or robustness of zCubes as I have never used it — and as such I will not blindly throw comments over the transom for which I have no first hand knowledge.

Steve, just a note: why do you think Amy did not even see Zude if she actually named some terminology from Zude that is supposed to violate ZCubes trademarks?

Svetlana, I cannot speculate on the actions of another party that I have never met, never spoken to, and only know through her blog posts. I absolutely encourage the entire Internet community to spend time at both Zude and zCubes so that all may judge for themselves without speculation and innuendo.

Steve, I think it’s a well-balanced position. Anyway only a real expert in both ZCubes and Zude will be able to make any judgement while I only have some experience with ZCubes and absolutely zero with Zude. So I won’t even try to make any desicion myself but this discussion is really interesting, I will be looking forward to your further arguments.

Svetlana, I agree. In a world of openess, light and truth reach into all dark corners. On May 1st the world will be able to judge for themsleves — there is no argument I need to offer.

Steve, I respect your position. I will be looking forward to May 1st, I’m sure many people will be interested in making a judge for themselves. And for now I understand your position in refraining from further arguments.

Interesting product. Does not seem to work though.

They give an explanation for the situation - which is rather usual: the server is down and they decided beta testing will be private until everything is stable. I pasted the explanation below but I can not say it is actually wise not to test the server properly for the most optimistic forecast possible. Anyway I will be waiting for an invitation in this event to be able to test the private now beta myself.

On Monday, April 30th, we launched our pre-beta release — and within 2 hours the amount of traffic we received exceeded our wildest expectations — and our server’s capacity! In response, we feverishly worked throughout the day to move the servers to a larger platform.

Twenty-four hours later we officially launched the public Beta for Zude. This time it only took 45 minutes for the traffic to reach a deafening level. What we have learned from this experience is the following: (1) clearly the world is curious/excited/hopeful/interested in Zude, and (2) our most optimistic projections could not have prepared us for the flood-gate opening — and ultimately the words “not prepared” best describe our situation.

As such, the best thing we can do is to convert our hoped-for public beta into a private one. We believe that only then, with a measure of control over the massive level of traffic that we have received, will we be able to help bring Zude into the global internet community.

If you have already signed up for the Zude beta, you will be receiving an email shortly with details. We hope you will consider helping us accomplish these tasks.

Thanks to all for their supreme patience and understanding.

– Jim, Steve, and the entire 5g team