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‘I will sue this I will sue that and accuse even more.’ I guess it’s some disease that infects every other successful business making them think that all creativity and successful thing has been chipped off from their own idea. We had reported recently about Facebook accusing StudiVZ, a German social network, of copying their interface completely (an act of jealousy as StudiVZ responded). Well this time things are a bit different.

The news is based on accusing one for hijacking another’s idea/interface and its Facebook bearing the brunt by Multiply as reported by Richard MacManus. The accusation points at Facebook’s new design, as Multiply added saying that the present interface and enhancements are strikingly similar to the innovations made by Multiply lately. Confusing, very confusing, how can that be the case when Facebook’s new design has been put up at testing for months as well and they have ‘now’ announced its launch after getting enough feedback to make it worth the launch (the new design has been in the test run since February). It even came up with a few ways, in which it thinks Facebook has copied them up:

Multiply launched its proprietary newsfeed in August of 2004, when the site launched. Two years later, Facebook introduced a similar, yet more basic, news feed for its users. Blogging, one of Multiply’s core features since launch, was introduced to Facebook more than 20 months later, and video sharing, a Multiply feature since June 2005, was introduced on Facebook nearly 16 months later. In September 2004, Multiply introduced photo printing services for its users, something that Facebook implemented two years later. In its most recent enhancement, "New Facebook" features several changes – both aesthetically and functionally – that make Facebook look and feel even more like Multiply.

Why would Multiply do such a thing? Sounds pretty senseless, enough to make us believe all this is to invite attention and why not? Popularity of another stings you bad, but going public in this manner is a cheap tactic to increase your user-base (and I am putting away a few bitter words to keep the post decent). All that can be said to soothe Multiply’s multiplying wounds is ‘Mate we can’t side with your accusation until Facebook’s proven guilty.’