It's time to give you some insight – Amazee is under attack. For the last few months your favorite social collaboration website has been cornered in Switzerland and in the US, and by no less than international media giant Amazon. Their lawyers don't like our name. It's too close to theirs, they say. If they succeed, we will not be allowed to use our name any more and we'll have to find a new one!
But we decided that we will not just let them take our cute name away, which we (and you, hopefully) have come to like so much. We want you to raise your voice for us: Spread the story with your Twitter followers, your friends, your family and everybody who has ears and eyes.
Show your support in the accompanying
project, in which we will keep you updated on everything. And: if you join, you can win! Believe it or not, but we are giving away a hefty Amazon gift certificate among those who become a member of the project. And if you don't win, next time you need a book, go and pay a visit to your local bookstore. They'll be happy to see you!
This, as you can imagine, is very annoying for us. We see no danger of confusion. Our name comes from the word "amazing", theirs from the mighty Amazon river. We have no intention of selling you books, CDs or whatever Amazon has in stock. We are handing you over the key to making this world a better place.
Furthermore, our respective companies' logos are very much different! And, last, not least: We are by far not as well-known as Amazon, so how on Earth could anyone mistake us for them? Please share your view in the
Amazee vs. Amazon project, we really appreciate your input on this one.
Image:
Randy Son of Robert,
CC
Comments
I've been following the Amazee site for a while and I honestly never even made the connection in my head that Amazee was similar to Amazon until I saw this. This is nothing new though, companies do this all the time with any type of similarities, as far fetched as they sound.
I think Amazon just slapped their buying public in the face bigtime with taking this stance ,by insinuating we are all idiots and cant' tell the difference between the two entities.
Crazy stuff!
I pity the International media giant that messes with a social collaboration site!
Thank you so much for your input and support, everybody. We appreciate it very much! Keep on rocking in the free world!
Seems that Amazon.com guys are bored after the release of their latest Kindle product.
If Amazee would be in a competitive environment I would understand some of their branding concerns. But not: SOCIAL Activities.
YOUTH against establishment.
Alone the announcement on techcrunch brings amazon guys such a bad PR....
Being a regular book shopper at Amazon, I really love the store and would never mix them up with anybody. Why should I? They are one of my top-level bookmarks - no chance of missing them! They are so big on the Internet, so popular and well-known and have pioneered several applications for mainstream large-scale use. I am therefore quite surprised that they handle this matter in such an old-fashioned way, ignoring the power of Web 2.0.
On the other hand, I am quite grateful to Amazon, because without their move of hassling Amazee I would maybe never have heard about this wonderful project collaboration platform. What a delight! I adore your idea with the Amazon voucher as a prize - it shows a good, collaborative and innovative spirit - and this is exactly what the world needs.
Well, even though a boycott might seem the logical thing to do, I don't like the attitude too much. What about a carrotmob? Any ideas for such a creative reverse-boycott anybody? Could be a great project on Amazee ...
Who is Amazon to decide what should be the name of other websites.
Amazon should be sued first for using a popular name of a river, ask them to change it NOW.
Its so funny that people sitting on board of these giant companies talk non-sense.
Amazon has an exclusive right to use the Amazon name in specific contexts. This doesn't give Amazon any right to claim rights in any name that starts with AMAZ and ends with a vowel. One needs to be really at least slightly retarded to confuse Amazee with Amazon.
Amazon's claims are clearly without any merit. Shame on Amazon.
PS: Until Amazon changes its attitude I stopped all purchases from Amazon.com and suggest that other do the same.
Opportunity to rebrand?
I have my qualms about whether Amazee is good branding anyway.
Having said this, the fact still remains that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.