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08-01-2008, 06:02 PM
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Taking a break
Group: Forum Leaders
Location: Adelaide
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How can he have so much contempt for his user base? Surely, you at least put this on your site somewhere.
David Watanabe: Mac software's answer to a snake-oil salesman.
__________________
Read my drivel, be dazzled by my Twitter
Are you some kind of devil trying to keep me from using my time usefully? - Currawong
"You're an enigma wrapped in a ferreo roche" - fulltimecasual
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08-01-2008, 06:42 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: http://tinyurl.com/2e3t5c
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Sure it's not great news/feeling on some things, but Acquisition really does rock!
__________________
Find out all about the latest and best tech and User Group events in Melbourne.
Visit: www.techevents.com.au |
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09-01-2008, 09:03 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Brisbane - Australia
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__________________
White MacBook 2.4GHz C2D, Apple 23" HD Display and Black 16GB iPhone 3G...
For Sale - PowerBook G4 17" 1.67GHz
Successful Sales - chrism238, ARB, Bob, Goodbye, chrissara, garrymacdonald, lavo, jubilantjeremy, Jordan M, mulquemi, avolve x 2, macaholic, warren21, Meh 626...
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09-01-2008, 09:21 PM
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Super
Group: Regulars
Location: Somewhere Slaying Vampires
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Architect.mac
David Watanabe answers...[/url]
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I would like to know how it was public knowledge. Its seems like very few people knew about it...
I guess people will just have to live with it considering the ads are a necessity according to DW
Last edited by iSlayer; 09-01-2008 at 09:31 PM.
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09-01-2008, 09:33 PM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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Quote:
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However, at the time I was feeling idealistic. I genuinely felt that Inquisitor was a great experience that everyone ought to be able to enjoy, and that it made the world (a small bit) better
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Somehow I think he only had one hand on the keyboard when typing that. |
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09-01-2008, 09:47 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Lancaster, UK
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As I said, this guy is providing an app for free - he has to get some money out of it somehow. Sticking links in at the top is a good way of going about it.
I had a go at bringing these amazon links up today (searching for Radiohead and The Office), and found the only way I could get them was to specify 'DVD' or 'CD' in the search. Anything else just brought up fan pages or official sites.
This all just seems to me to be yet another chance to have a go at an easy target.
__________________
iMac G5 (iSight) 20" | iMac C2D 20" | BlackBook C2D 2.2Ghz | iPod 4G 20GB | iPod touch 16GB | iPod touch (2G) 32GB |
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09-01-2008, 09:56 PM
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Widgeteer
Group: Forum Leaders
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Quote:
Originally Posted by half goon half god
As I said, this guy is providing an app for free - he has to get some money out of it somehow. Sticking links in at the top is a good way of going about it.
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I think the main issue here is disclosure. Where on his product page does it say "I tamper with the results so I can make some money with this app"?
Changing search results for your own benefit without having a large "SPONSORED LINK" heading or some way to denote the affiliate links is really poor form. |
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09-01-2008, 09:57 PM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: ...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by half goon half god
This all just seems to me to be yet another chance to have a go at an easy target.
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Easy target, or repeat offender? |
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09-01-2008, 10:03 PM
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Super
Group: Regulars
Location: Somewhere Slaying Vampires
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Quote:
Originally Posted by half goon half god
As I said, this guy is providing an app for free - he has to get some money out of it somehow. Sticking links in at the top is a good way of going about it.
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Sure its free but there are millions of other free apps that dont have ads in them. He has several other popular shareware apps plus he accepts donations for inquisitor. Ads in the app seem a bit over the top to me |
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09-01-2008, 10:04 PM
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NSLog(@"%@", [self customTitle]);
Group: Regulars
Location: Melbourne
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Quote:
Originally Posted by half goon half god
As I said, this guy is providing an app for free - he has to get some money out of it somehow. Sticking links in at the top is a good way of going about it.
I had a go at bringing these amazon links up today (searching for Radiohead and The Office), and found the only way I could get them was to specify 'DVD' or 'CD' in the search. Anything else just brought up fan pages or official sites.
This all just seems to me to be yet another chance to have a go at an easy target.
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Mac users don't just go after any old indie developer because they are "an easy target"....
DW appears to have a few communication issues. This disclosure thing is exactly that. He's a great programmer, no doubt. But the way he treats his users/customers leaves a lot to be desired. This is not a one off, this is an ongoing saga for many people. It's unfortunate, because his software is of very good quality.
__________________
"A company must go out and find what the customer wants ... The need is not for, say, half a million ¼-inch drill bits. The needs is that there are ten million ¼-inch holes that need to be drilled." - Robert Noyce
"Algorithms that forget their history are doomed to repeat it" - Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach (Russel & Norvig)
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10-01-2008, 06:33 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Manly, Sydney
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I'd been wondering what the money making angle was with Inquisitor, it's not like Watanabe to give away software (at least not without a paid for upgrade "option").
Thanks, to tcn33 for spotting the affiliate code. I've got no problem with developers trying to make money from their efforts, but I do expect them to make disclosure.
Personally, I'd switch to AcidSearch if I could get it working in Safari 3 on 10.4.11.
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10-01-2008, 07:16 AM
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Regular
Group: Regulars
Location: Speculate! Speculate!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fulltimecasual
xtorrent is all about sharing linux distros...[/i]
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Oh god my sides hurt from laughing so hard! I mean, really, this is tooooo funny 
__________________
I'm the Layer 8 solution. You are the Layer 8 problem. Shut up and listen.
The Rudd/Conroy Internet Censorship Plan is political censorship.
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11-01-2008, 08:45 PM
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I'm crackin' skulls
Group: Forum Leaders
Location: Melbourne
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Update: a TUAW commenter claims that Watanabe told him Newsfire is no longer in development. If this is true - and to be fair, one comment on a blog is hardly conclusive - it means those lifetime updates people paid for are now worthless.
It's also worth noting that DW has taken down his blog post defending his lack of disclosure re: Inquisitor search result alteration. |
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29-03-2008, 01:19 AM
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Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
Group: Regulars
Location: Perth
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Watanabe is mentioned in this month's Macworld mag. It seems that his XTorrent, by all accounts a beautiful looking app, is breaching Open Source etiquette/guidelines by failing to prominently credit the makers of Transmission (which is the engine of XTorrent almost to the bit, without the eye candy) and by charging ($19) off someone else's work. The makers of Transmission have apparently changed its software licence and vowed to change the code in order to prevent Watanabe doing the dirty on them in the future.
The guy is just bad news.
__________________
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Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
- Cicero (106BC-43BC)
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29-03-2008, 10:01 AM
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Super
Group: Regulars
Location: Somewhere Slaying Vampires
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tintinaujapon
The makers of Transmission have apparently changed its software licence and vowed to change the code in order to prevent Watanabe doing the dirty on them in the future.
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Direct quote from the transmission forum
Quote:
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Portions of the code will be changed to avoid *blatant attempts to profit significantly from our work*
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David claims he rewrote the newly licensed code for xtorrent - Transmission :: View topic - Licensing change |
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