scrabulous
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Hasbro Drops Scrabulous Lawsuit
Hasbro today announced that it has dropped its lawsuit against the makers of Scrabulous, the popular Facebook Scrabble clone that was forced to shut down earlier this year. Scrabulous later reappeared as Wordscraper, a reimagined version of Scrabble, but this app was decisively less popular than the original. Hasbro's own Scrabble game on Facebook also never quite caught on with the old Scrabulous fan base.
Dude, Where's My App? 10 Web Apps We Wish Hadn't Disappeared
We track hundreds of web apps here on ReadWriteWeb. Some, like YouTube and last.fm, become our favorites and prosper. But others sadly close down, or whither away due to not many people using them, or suddenly stop working for one reason or another (the bills are too high, the RIAA gets on their back, the developer doesn't have time, or a myriad of other reasons). Here is a list of 10 web apps that are no more, that we at ReadWriteWeb miss and wish were still operational.
Weekly Wrapup, 28 July - 1 August 2008
It's time to wrap up the week's web tech news, reviews and analysis on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we reviewed a super-hyped new search engine called Cuil, analysed the BT acquisition of web telephony platform Ribbit, looked at why Google bought video startup Omnisio, and investigated why popular Facebook app Scrabulous was shut down. On the trends side we discussed how web apps can work together, checked out Ray Ozzie's latest vision for Microsoft, gave you an overview of 'brandstreaming', and looked at alternatives to Google Knol.
The Bigger Questions Behind The Scrabulous Shutdown
As of today, Scrabulous, the wildly popular Facebook Scrabble game, is no more. If you try to login to the app now you'll get the message "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice." You have the option of entering your email address to receive further information about developments in the matter. While Scrabulous fans are certainly angered over the app's shutdown, the unanswered question still looms: did Hasbro have to do this?
Goodbye Scrabulous, Hello "Scrabble by Mattel?"
Scrabulous, the extremely popular but unauthorized Scrabble Facebook app, has been under fire thanks to Hasbro and Mattel, the two companies who own the rights to Scrabble - Hasbro in North America, and Mattel in the rest of the world. The companies threatened to take Scrabulous offline, a move which prompted major public outcry from fans who proceeded to sign online petitions, join groups in support of the game, and even threaten boycotts of the companies' products.
Bogglific Avoids Facebook Deadpool - Reborn as Prolific
At the same time as Hasbro/Mattel's well-publicized take down order of the uber-popular Facebook game Scrabulous (which is based on their Scrabble board game), they were also going after a far smaller app called "Bogglific." Bogglific, an online clone of Hasbro's Boggle game, was at the time played by over 7,000 users per day. A far cry from Scrabulous' 600,000, but certainly significant enough to warrant Hasbro's attention. After receiving the takedown order, Bogglific creator Roger Nesbitt announced his plans to shelve the game. "I'm no lawyer," he wrote. "But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily."
But a week after Bogglific was removed from Facebook, the application is back, sporting a new name, and some basic rule changes.
Hasbro to Facebook: Take Down Scrabulous, Bogglific
I admit an unhealthy addiction to Scrabble. I have been playing almost daily for many years. I think my girlfriend and I own 5 or 6 different versions of the game between the two of us. That's why I was so excited last year when brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla launched Scrabulous on the Facebook platform (they actually created the game in 2006, but it didn't really take off until it was introduced to the Facebook audience). Being rather familiar with the various incarnations of Scrabble online, I am confident in my opinion that Scrabulous is by far the best.
But in the back of my mind I knew it wouldn't last. The name is too close to Hasbro's trademark. The rules, tile distribution, the game board -- all the things that make it superior in every way to Yahoo!'s Literati -- all infringe on Hasbro's copyrights. And so, this past week has not been a very good one in Scrabulous land.
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