According to Hasbro, this agreement also "provides people in the U.S. and Canada with a choice of different games and also avoids potentially lengthy and costly litigation."

However, most users really liked the old Scrabulous and preferred it over Hasbro's own alternative, though according to AllFacebook, Hasbro's version is slowly picking up more users now. Hasbro's Scrabble app is currently rated 1.3 out of 5 on Facebook.

Thanks to this agreement, neither Hasbro nor Scrabulous' developers, RJ Software, have to face a long and expensive legal battle, and RJ Software can still offer Wordscraper and Lexulous.

Popular playlist sharing site Muxtape got taken down by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in mid-August and it is unfortunately still non-operational. The fact is that Muxtape didn't pay its internet radio licensing fees. In our recent RWW Live podcast on online music, Lucas Gonze (creator of similar playlist service Webjay, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2006) said that Muxtape was "trying to become a big service, i.e. get too big to fail and so cut a deal [with labels]." Unfortunately Muxtape failed to escape the notice of the RIAA.

NetShare (iPhone app)

Nullriver's NetShare was an iPhone app that, according to Gizmodo, allowed you to tether your laptop to your iPhone using the handset's 3G modem as your laptop's own. Basically this let you have full Internet access on your laptop without Wi-Fi, for free. There was talk that this violates AT&T's terms of service, but whatever the reason the app has been pulled from Apple's App Store. The last message on the site is dated 4 August and states: "We're working with Apple to get NetShare back up on the AppStore." But we're not holding our breath.

Image courtesy of Gizmodo

The CLQ

Adam Steinberg of EventVue wrote in to tell us that he misses The CLQ (the acronym stands for Champions League for Quake style games). It's an app that kept track of "millions of game players (Quake, Unreal, Half-life, Tribes, etc.) on thousands of online game servers." It was a very popular app in its niche, however it was stopped. The developers claim that this was due to "incredible amounts of e-mail, GameSpy monopolizing access to game servers, constant upgrading of hardware and software to process increased traffic, games getting their own statistics, etc."

The good news for CLQ fans is that one of the developers, Nico de Vries, is currently working on a version 2.0.

PubSub

PubSub was one of our favorite 'future search' products back in the early days of web 2.0 - you could enter keywords and the product would deliver search results to you automatically. This feature is now common place in news sites, for example Google News has it, but back in '03-'05 PubSub was an innovator.

So it was a great product, but PubSub spectacularly imploded in mid-2006 after founder Bob Wyman blogged about "internal political issues". Wyman left the company shortly after and the product sunk along with its creator. Perhaps PubSub will rise again, because apparently it still exists today. Here is the message on its frontpage currently:

Others have risen since to take over the reins in future search. A few of our favorites are ZapTXT, FeedRinse and BlastFeed. We discussed those and other services here. But we'll always have a soft spot for PubSub...

AllPeers

In March we heard that P2P browser plug-in AllPeers had shut down, a blow to a market that seemed very promising back in 2006. AllPeers set out to add "file sharing to the web browser". Technically the service seemed fine, however the reason for the closure according to the company was that "we have not achieved the kind of growth in our user base that our investors were expecting, and as a result we are not able to continue operating the service."

Scrabulous (Facebook app)

We reported in April that Scrabulous, the extremely popular but unauthorized Scrabble Facebook app, was under fire from Hasbro and Mattel. Those two companies own the rights to Scrabble - Hasbro in North America, and Mattel in the rest of the world. In July the bigcos had their way and Scrabulous was taken offline.

After more legal ducking and weaving, in which the app was first pulled in North America and then internationally too, the app got re-born under the name Wordscraper. It uses circles instead of Scrabble-like square tiles. Unfortunately the change isn't proving too popular. This comment by a Facebook user is an example of the reaction:

"I loved Scrabulous !
Wordscraper is kinda the same but I do not like the round tiles , it makes it difficult to play , kinda messes everything together, change it to SQUARES and it would be alot better."

The old version, with squares

Pandora

OK you can still use Pandora in the US, despite concerns that it might be on the verge of closing. But those of us who live outside the US haven't been able to access this lovely music discovery service for too long a time.

Qumana

Tris Hussey tweeted to tell us that Qumana was a great java-based blog editor, "easy and light." Unfortunately it is not being updated anymore and the homepage isn't accessible.

Crgslst

Back in March we reported on a very slick multi-city search tool for Craigslist, called crgslst. As we noted, Craigslist itself doesn't offer a multi-search service. By combining the publicly available RSS feeds from Craigslist with AJAX, crgslst fills this need "so fast, we left the vowels behind." We noted at the time that crgslst may be in violation of the Craigslist terms of use and could face the same shutdown that other similar projects have in the past.

Indeed this has turned out to be the case. Currently when you visit crglst, you are greeted with this despairing pop-up message:

ShareYourOPML

This site for sharing OPML files was "retired" by creator Dave Winer in January. He wrote at the time that "now that Google and Bloglines both have discovery mechanisms, based on what you and others like, there would only be a future for SYO if it were a thriving and growing community, and it isn't."

The good news for OPML fans is that Toluu has risen to fill the void. We reviewed it in March, noting that it lets you share your OPML with others in order to discover new feeds, see what your friends are reading, and even discover new people who share your same interests. We were impressed by the service, even more so in May when enhancements were announced.

So perhaps, sometimes, there is a silver lining in the dark cloud of web apps that close or get shut down!

Have Your Say

Tell us in the comments which web apps have disappeared in recent times that you used to love. Also let us know if anything has come along since that you perhaps like even better.

Cuil: Good, But Not Great

This week a new search engine called Cuil launched out of stealth-mode. As some had predicted, it seems Google's announcement about the size of its search index was a preemptive move to take some momentum away from one of Cuil's main features: the size of its index with 120 billion pages. As Cuil's team features quite a number of Google alumni, comparisons with Google's search are inevitable. In our tests, however, Cuil performed nowhere near as well as Google.

See also: Wow, How Did Cuil Get So Much Publicity on Day 1?! and Yahoo BOSS Should Capitalize On Cuil Damp Squib Launch

Why British Telecom Bought Ribbit, The Web Telephony Platform

Communications company British Telecom (BT) has acquired innovative web telephony platform Ribbit for a reported $105 million. BT has been sniffing around the Bay Area for startups to acquire for some time and this one is a great fit. Not just because both companies are in the voice market but because as a means of folding click-to-call functionality into any web application - Ribbit is fascinating. BT was supposed to be a big mover and shaker in the communications industry of the future, but it hasn't worked out that way so far. Can Ribbit move the needle for BT? We think it could in a big way.

Google Acquires Omnisio

Maybe to counter some of the bad news around YouTube this week, Google just announced the acquisition of the Y Combinator funded video annotation and mashup company Omnisio. According to Google, the acquisition of Omnisio will allow them to keep pushing the envelope of what is possible with online video. Neither Google nor Omnisio have commented on the price of the acquisition, but it is clear that the Omnisio team is going to join YouTube.

Yahoo Music Does The Right Thing: Issues Refunds to Customers

Last Thursday, we reported that Yahoo Music was going to shut down its store and DRM licensing servers on September 30, which was basically going to leave anybody who ever bought music from the Yahoo Music Store without a license to play their music. Now, however, Yahoo has announced that it will issue a refund to its customers for the full value of their purchases. Yahoo is also looking at making copies of the music its customers bought available to them as MP3s without any DRM.

The Bigger Questions Behind The Scrabulous Shutdown

As of this week, 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?

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Some Web Apps Work Better Together

How many new websites can you fit in a Volkswagen Beetle? Sometimes it feels like that's what we're trying to do these days - but all these new applications and services don't have to be crammed into our heads and lives as separate things to try out and remember. Many new technologies work best in concert; the functionality of one application can be vastly improved by using it together with another one. Here are some of our favorite examples of apps that work best together, followed by some favorite workflows from friends of ReadWriteWeb. We hope you'll share your favorite combos in comments, too, so we can all learn some new things.

Peering Into Microsoft's Cloud

On July 24th, Microsoft held their annual Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM), an event where many of Microsoft's top executives come together to talk about the company's progress and achievements. At this year's meeting, Microsoft Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie hinted at Microsoft's cloud initiatives, a part of their Software + Services (S+S) strategy. While Ozzie did not reveal either codenames or ship dates during his speech, there is still some information we can piece together to help determine what Microsoft's cloud will look like.

Brandstreaming: What Is It & Who's Doing It?

If there's a hot new social media trend happening, you can bet that companies are trying to find a way to use it too. It happened of course with blogging, it happened with Twitter, and it is now happening with FriendFeed and other lifestreaming apps. Indeed RSS vendor Pheedo has coined a neat term for this: brandstreaming. It defines a brandstream as "a consistent flow of content created by a brand". According to a recent report, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher's site - through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices.

What Startups Can Learn From Haruki Murakami

Alex Iskold is a big fan of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. The genius of Murakami is in his discipline, focus and determination. He seems him as a virtual Zen master - an embodiment of wisdom, passion, skills and exceptional will. The elements of his work and life story are inspirational and (here's where ReadWriteWeb comes in) particularly applicable when you're running a startup. Therefore in this post, we take a look at what modern technology startups can learn from this Japanese literary master.

The Google Knol Threat to Content Businesses - a Wiki Plug-in Might Level The Playing Field

Does Knol (our review) make Google into a “content company”? Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis made a compelling case this week. You can say he is conflicted, because his Mahalo venture has a lot to lose if Knol succeeds. Or you can say that he knows of what he speaks, because he is in the eye of the storm. Jason’s view that Google is the closest we have to an operating system for the web makes sense. His comparison to how Microsoft, an earlier generation operating system vendor, invaded the application market that had belonged to their partners, rings true. This is what dominant tech companies have always done.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Last week, Hasbro filed suit against Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, the brothers who created the app two years ago. The game, as you may know, doesn't just take inspiration from Scrabble, but rips it off entirely and transports it to the web...triple word scores and all.

On the one hand, the brothers should be congratulated for having the foresight to see how popular an online version of this game could be - it quickly rose to become one of the all-time favorite games on Facebook's social network with over 500,000 daily users. On the other, you have to wonder what other result the Agarwall brothers could have hoped for at this point.

Although Hasbro sent a takedown notice back in January to Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, they later tried to come to an agreement with the brothers over the rights to the game. In fact, Electronic Arts, RealNetworks, Mattel, and Hasbro - the four U.S. companies that each have some of the rights of Scrabble - came together to offer the brothers a large sum of money which would have allowed them to keep a version of the game up and running.

According to this New York Times article, Jayant Agarwalla said that he and his brother did not create Scrabulous to make money - they just wanted to play Scrabble on their computers. So why didn't they accept the big check then? The brothers decided to turn down the check, rumored to be around the $10 million mark; apparently, they were holding out for more money. How much more? A multiple of several times $10 million by some accounts. Even though the game, by all fair estimates, was probably only worth around $3-6 million, the brothers felt they deserved more.

Was This A Big Mistake?

While some are calling the Scrabulous shutdown a great blunder on Hasbro's part, we wonder what other solutions could the company have taken to protect their brand? Or is it time for companies to give up trying to protect their brand altogether and just learn how to better compete with those that counterfeit their copyright? This question is truly the basis for all the arguments surrounding the piracy issue - that is, whether it's worthwhile to go after pirates, thieves, and copyright-infringers, or whether it's better to simply let them be and consider it free advertising.

Recently though, RealNetworks launched their own version of online Scrabble, "Scrabble by Mattel," a completely legal and authorized version of the game. The "Scrabble by Mattel" app, released through RealNetworks' Gamehouse division, was made in agreement with Mattel, so, technically, it's only legal outside the U.S. and Canada.

But why recreate the wheel? Scrabulous is already doing quite well and is one of Facebook's most popular, not to mention one of their stickiest apps, drawing people to their site just for the purpose of playing the game.

And early reviews of "Scrabble" are mixed, at best, according to a recent NY Times article. Users are saying that "Scrabble by Mattel" "takes a long time to load, does not always update quickly to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect the Tournament World List Scrabble dictionary."

With Scrabulous's appeal, one wonders why Mattel opted for their own version of the game - could it have something to do with this rumor about the creators, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and the tens of millions of dollars they wanted for their app? Perhaps Mattel just found that figure ridiculous.

So is Scrabulous doomed? Not necessarily. This move by Mattel doesn't have to mean that Scrabulous will be no more. There's still Hasbro to think of, and they recently worked out a deal with Bogglific, the online version of Boggle.

After submitting a takedown notice to Facebook over both Scrabulous and Bogglific, the Bogglific app rebranded and changed their scoring system and now continues, apparently legally, as Prolific. Scrabulous might be able to do the same. Facebook certainly doesn't want to remove the app just yet - they didn't even comply with the takedown.

However, RealNetworks' PR manager, Ryan Luckin, stated for the NY Times article, that "it is important to remember that even if we reach an arrangement with the Scrabulous owners, both Hasbro and Mattel must approve any Scrabble-related game."

And since Mattel clearly doesn't approve, fans should still be a little worried.

But a week after Bogglific was removed from Facebook, the application is back, sporting a new name, and some basic rule changes.

Like Nesbitt, I too am no lawyer, so I am not sure his minor changes to the Boggle gameboard and scoring system will keep the game out of trouble with Hasbro -- who have deep pockets and who in the past week have demonstrated they are very protective of their intellectual property.

Compared to Yahoo!'s Literati, which is another variant of a popular Hasbro game (in this case, Scrabble), the changes aren't quite as dramatic. Literati changed the tile distribution, letter point values, and the game board itself, while Prolific's changes are fairly minor. (Yahoo! also sells an officially licensed version of Scrabble, which can't hurt.)

Regardless, though, the relaunch of Prolific should make the game's fans happy for as long as it lasts. The gameplay mechanics haven't been changed enough (or much at all) to alter the enjoyment of the game for most fans. Therein lies the potential problem with Hasbro, but for now, Boggle fans on Facebook have a place to play again.

Scrabulous, meanwhile, remains online and unchanged. No licensing deal has been reached, to our knowledge, and Facebook has yet to pull the plug from their end.

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.

It's easy to see why Scrabulous caught Hasbro's attention. According to Facebook measurement firm Adonomics, it is currently the 9th most popular app on the site by active users, with over 600,000 today. It generates 70 million pageviews per month and pulls in "over $25,000 a month."

Fans of the application have taken Quittner's advice to "please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous" to heart, and the Save Scrabulous group this morning has about 3,000 members. Users have organized email campaigns aimed at Hasbro headquarters, and the BBC News has even taken notice, with a reporter posting a call for Londoners willing to be interviewed live on BBC News 24.

Hasbro has also gone after Bogglific, which is a Facebook incarnation of its Boggle word game. "Hasbro, Inc. has sent a DMCA notification notice to Facebook regarding Bogglific. They claim it violates their trademark, and violates copyright over the Boggle rules," wrote developer Roger Nesbitt in an open letter to users this morning. "I'm no lawyer, and can't see how it violates copyright. 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."

It would be interesting to see if Hasbro has experienced any sort of sales bump since the explosion of these games on Facebook. A number of users posting to the "Save Scrabulous" group have said that they became hooked on the game via Facebook and have since purchased copies of the board game (and the same anecdotal evidence appears on the message board of a group trying to save Bogglific). It seems a safe bet that apps like Scrabulous and Bogglific have exposed these traditional board games to a new audience. It is easy to draw parallels to the RIAA here.

"Anything promoting Scrabble to a younger audience is a good thing," said Stewart Holden, the publicity officer for the Association of British Scrabble Players, which has operated under a licensing agreement with Mattel (who licenses the product internationally) since 1987. "While we recognize the legal ownership of the Scrabble trademark by Hasbro and Mattel, the impact of the Facebook Scrabulous application has been enormous and it would be a shame if no agreement could be reached which enabled this huge publicity boost for the game to continue."

The Aragwalla's are reportedly trying to work out a licensing deal with Hasbro.

A form letter sent by Hasbro Senior Manager of Consumer Affairs Kriss De Nardo to Scrabulous fans who have emailed the Rhode Island-based company seems to indicate that the company is open to licensing the use of the Scrabble intellectual property. "SCRABBLE has been entertaining millions of people around the world for 60 years so we are not surprised that fans have thoroughly enjoyed playing Scrabulous on Facebook.com," De Nardo wrote in the letter. "What consumers may not realize, however, is that Scrabulous is an illegally copied online version of the world’s most popular word game, the copyrights and trademarks for which are owned by Hasbro in the U.S. and Canada and Mattel in the rest of the world. We encourage fans to continue to lay down online tiles at sites that have legally licensed the interactive rights to host SCRABBLE fun."

However, licensing attempts could possibly be stymied in the case of Scrabble, because the online rights for the game currently belong to computer game company Electronic Arts.

It would seem that Hasbro has three options: force a take down of the infringing apps, work out a licensing agreement with them, buy them. As Josh Quittner suggests:

"If I were an evil genius running a board games company whose product line spanned everything from Monopoly to Clue, I might do this: Wait until someone comes up with an excellent implementation of my games and does the hard work of coding and debugging the thing and signing up the masses. Then, once it got to scale, I’d sweep in and take it over. Let the best pirate site win! If I were compassionate, I’d even cut in the guys who did all the work for a percentage point or two to keep the site running."

Are you listening Hasbro?