I bet the IP TechCrunch owns is simply the brand "CrunchPad." Good luck with that suit.
Fusion Garage's story is infinitely more believable than Arrington's. After both sides have spoken, I imagine it went down like this:
They show him their OS in hopes of getting press and subsequent funding. Arrington loves the idea and wants in on the concept. Fusion Garage goes and actually builds the thing. Meetings take place with Fusion Garage probably passively hoping for funding through Arrington's connections and Arrington monopolizing the conversation with "product ideas" that are more pie-in-the-sky thinking than actual engineering.
In the meantime, tablet fever grips the nation and a Fusion Garage with a working prototype has no trouble scoring VC meetings. They probably had to fight off the cash being thrown at them. Suddenly they don't need Arrington and those that actually came through with funding demand they end the charade of him being a participant. All they have to do is come up with a new name (Joojoo? Come on...)
What remains to be seen is how TC's audience will react. The idea that Arrington apparently tried to glom onto the project with no engineering contributions perfectly fits the tropes discussed on HN: MBA-types make a buck off the back of those who actually built the thing. I wonder if this tale will actually hurt his rep?
Who here will approach TC and Arrington differently after today?
The idea that Arrington apparently tried to glom onto the project with no engineering contributions perfectly fits the tropes discussed on HN: MBA-types make a buck off the back of those who actually built the thing.
The fact that you already have so many upvotes just perfectly illustrates how so many people still don't get that sales and marketing are just as important to product success as engineering. Maybe more. Characterizing Arrington's involvement as an attempt to "glom onto the project with no engineering contributions" is both unwarranted idle speculation and irrelevant, as there are many other contributions to be made beyond just engineering.
The lack of contracts seems to indicate that Fusion Garage's story is more accurate. It's entirely possible that the original idea, however, was Arrington's and that Fusion Garage simply decided to build it. However, Arrington says that they contributed IP to the project -- I wonder what that is supposed to be.
I'm honestly really surprised (and a little appalled) at the number of upvotes your comment has received. There's a mob-like response whenever a story comes up about MA or TechCrunch. As far as I can tell, Fusion Garage's response (from this Engadget article) is hearsay as well.
this guy would be talking to a wall if it wasn't for Techcrunch. He would have never been able to raise any money either, since most of Asia won't talk to him and certainly nobody in Singapore does since he burnt his last startup in much the same way.
This guy is a complete scammer and has a track record of doing exactly this. Watching HN people take his side after watching his video spin and not knowing anything else about him is just sick.
I agree. When reading those Arrington articles, it was obvious that he had no technical contribution to the thing.
That being said, Fusion Garage really fell on their face. The only thing they needed to do is come up with a name better than crunch pad, which should not have been too hard. And they come up with joojoo??? Ouch.
Significant missing detail: there seems to have been disagreement on the pricing, with Arrington presumably wanting a lower margin product that was closer to his original vision. This seems to be the thing that Fusion Garage's investors balked at.
Engineering is not the only story here. They got a lot of attention that they never would have gotten w/o the biggest name in tech news singing their praises from his bully pulpit. Imagine the uphill battle these guys would face trying to sell what is essentially a new computer on its merits alone.
It seems to me the FusionGarage people have gotten what they need from Arrington; attention. Now that he is no longer useful he's been sidelined. Kind of a Machiavellian move, since no lawsuit can undo the press they got.
Arrington was using them and they were using Arrington. Which, in the end, is the nature of all business relationships.
I have no idea about the whole mess, but I think the statement "techcrunch is just a blog" would probably resonate with a lot of people and actually get them sympathy.
I do think the TechCrunch PR and marketing probably could have made it better, but perhaps there is a bit much credit and attention given to the louder mouths then is deserved.
In any case, interesting to watch, and a device like this for that price point would be awesome if anyone can pull it off.
If Arrington is spouting off and doesn't have contracts in hand, he's severely hurt the credibility of FusionGarage among their core market for the product. A countersuit might be in order.
definitely. I mean both HP and Apple have engineers, but I could never figure out what makes Apple better - please explain? Since the argument is that it is all engineers and 'lines of code', that means that it comes down to who writes the code, right? Which explains why Apple is so great, or maybe not.
The sooner you wake up to what marketing really is the better
So, here it is: Fusion Garage's side of the story. And what do you know, it doesn't exactly match up with Arrington's version. Best bit: "There are no contracts between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch."
Holy crap. I knew there was going to be more to this.
I have made some harsh comments toward TechCrunch recently about this very issue (just check my comment history if you're unfamiliar). My suspicions were true. But now it's time to dish it out toward Fusion Garage. If I were Fusion Garage and an entity was marketing MY product as if it were their own, I would send a cease and desist letter immediately. Fusion Garage isn't exactly coming out of this story looking perfectly clean. TechCrunch probably does have some substance to a lawsuit should they file any.
My gut tells me the whole venture is going to crash and burn. One shady business practice is indicative of a whole sh*tstorm of shady business practices and I would bet the launch of this product is met with delays, unmet promises, logistical mistakes, etc.
I have to agree with you. With Arrington's resent openness about the whole issue, you'd think he'd slap those contracts up on TechCrunch as fast as possible to refute any claim like this.
He put up the lawsuits that were filed, but I haven't seen any contracts which lead me to believe they never existed.
This is definitely a story of botched communications, but don't be so quick to believe this guy. I think when the dust settles, the truth will be somewhere in the middle of the two stories we are hearing.
Not having firm contracts up front was just silly - on Arrington's part. They've pulled a Microsoft on him, and it's fair enough. It's a jungle out there, and on a personal level, I don't feel any sympathy for tech crunch at all.
Many people said the same thing about netbooks, when they first came into the picture. In any case there might be a market for it, and it might be too early to decide the usefulness of the device.
Agreed, but wow, this thing really gets style points from me. :)
The thing has a USB port that could (presumably) be used for a keyboard if you required one. Wish I could get one with a full-fledged OS on it. In that case, I'd consider it.
It is a bit pricey, but it's a nice size. I see Youtube in the photos so presumably it does Flash. If it handles HTML5 as well then the lack of local storage may not matter a whole lot. Much depends on the quality of the touch sensitivity.
Meantime, Chandra is certainly being assertive about his side of the TechCrunch saga. If his claims are true then Michael Arrington's business cred is going to take a major hit.
I think I agree, though you never know. My instinctive reaction is they should have pushed on the price. Smaller screen, whatever.
While this may prove to be an incredibly useful device in the future, it hasn't yet. At the moment it's in the toy category, like the ipod touch. It's almost twice the acceptable price for a toy.
I get a feeling this is going to become a case study in how not to develop a product.
It's looking more and more like Arrington has totally screwed up contracts, agreements etc. And then it looks like this Fusion Garage CEO has a complete lack of understanding why the CrunchPad was a great name (etc)....
Im willing to bet we never actually see a product - either that or it will bomb.
It looks like they have no marketing or branding experience. Their logo is astonishingly confusing considering their name: https://thejoojoo.com/images/logo.jpg
"Let's call it JooJoo and have the logo read iooioo even though it's supposed to be spelled JuJu![1]"
Crunch pad was not a good name. The word crunch is a terrible word to put in there. It is related to a website, whose audience is rather specialised and much smaller than the intended audience for the device itself. Also, you do not want to name a general browsing device after a specific website, because people that are actually aware of the website may take it to mean that it is intended to browse that site only.
For people that are not aware of the website, the word "crunch" provides connotations of (i) doing numerical computations (ii) working for long hours and (iii) working out, all of which are negative connotations for a device like this.
So yes, crunch pad was a terrible name, but I think joojoo is even worse. That will just elicit bad jewish jokes.
I am most intrigued at how Michael Arrington, a former attorney, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Arrington] would have failed so miserably at doing anything to protect his interests. No contract? No formal IP? Nothing?
That's quite an indicator that he likely had little to do with this device as Fusion Garage claims. If he'd actually done more to bring it to fruition, he would probably have taken the appropriate steps to safeguard his investment. For anyone else I may attribute a lapse like this as simply a mistake, but for an attorney to drop the ball this badly sounds quite suspicious...
Why does it only browse the web? How hard can it be to throw a desktop on there?
You make all that hardware and then cripple it with limited software? Whateva. I would pay $499 if it had bluetooth and could run a normal OS.
Also, these Fusion Garage guys need to hire a marketing/PR firm STAT. Fingerprint-marred green screen and scary looking nerd glowering at the camera is bad for business.
I find it interesting that this all apparently happened so quickly, but the timing still seems off.
The domain "thejoojoo.com" was registered on Nov 10th.
They told TechCrunch about the split on the 17th, and that day TechCrunch applied for the trademark.
I mean, who was running this show? Domain names and trademarks are supposed to be lined up and checked much further in advance. (Not to mention contracts...)
On a side note: this is the tech equivalent of celebrity gossip... I'm sure that much worse has happened in the past, but never this publicly.
It's hard to tell exactly what's going on here, but clearly Arrington was an idiot if he didn't have any contracts in place.
That said, I find fusion garage's side of the story pretty suspect, and even if it's true, I highly doubt they'll succeed. They seem way too focused on the product and the technology and seem to think it will market and sell itself.
I hope TechCrunch sues. Even without a written contract, there must be heaps of verbal and written evidence as to exactly what the relationship here was. Letting the courts sort it out might be the only way to get close to the truth.
The only thing I liked about the whole webcast/interview is that fact that he said it the way it is, "Techcrunch is just a blog". Not only that, its a tech blog with authors that has little to no tech knowledge about the underlying technologies they write about.
A tech news blog is itself a subject of news because of its hunger for drama.
My theory, which is pure speculation, is that Fusion Garage misinterpreted Arrington's support. He promotes many companies on his blog, TC50 and elsewhere. It seems entirely plausible that FG thought Arrington was simply an enthusiastic supporter trying to help a small company bring a product to market. Maybe they figured he would buy a bunch of units OEM and rebrand them as CrunchPads while they were free to sell the design to other companies or market a device at retail themselves. The fact that Mr. Arrington, who is a tech savy lawyer, apparently did not enter into any formal contracts supports this theory. He should know better. It's very suspicious that he would not clearly define the terms very early in the process. This suggests to me he wanted to swoop in and take control of the product only when it was nearing its completion. FG takes most of the risk -- he jumps in at the last second if they pull off the engineering side of things. The big question is who was paying the bills?
Mr. Arrington originally said the CrunchPad was not about profit. So what's the problem with Fusion Garage selling their own device? Or even selling the design to other companies? Again this strikes me as being very suspicious. Wouldn't more manufactures competing against each other be true to his original vision? Was FG unwilling to sell him this hardware to be re-branded as CrunchPads or were they unwilling to give him exclusive access to it?
It looks like FusionGarage was looking at initial funding (or acquisition) from techcrunch early in product development cycle. And techcrunch (i believe intentionally) avoided commiting anything earlier itself since they thought it as too risky. Techcrunch thought that they would bring in world class investors and team later around the product development ( few months before launch) and get a good stake in the product for that. And FusionGarage investors were frustrated that TC can come around later (when the risk is too low) and take a major bite of it.
In between, TC claims that they did initial marketing for the product. Technically it may be correct. But From risk factor, what was at stake here for TC ? Actually TC biz model works on buzz factor. More Buzz equals more readers and Revenue. So at worst (if product fails), they made some money out of the whole buzz. But for FusionGarage (and their investors), everything was at stake.
Arrington might be correct, they could have negotiated on the product stake. ( How about : 2% for initial idea discussion, 2% for initial marketing, and 2% bring in new investors and team .) I guess such a 5-6% offer would have still led to such a breakup. (But can u give a 30% stake just for blogging about a product ?)
To me, Arrington is a Bad (Scary) Startup-Investor here (keeping the startup in guessing game till end ..), and FusionGarage has a bad CEO who could not anticipate what was to come. And those investors are smart to bring the whole stuff out before the product is actually launched.
Looking at what he's holding versus what I saw in the hype pictures is a starkly different product in terms of size. I don't care if the green is a trick of the camera light or not Arrington was right if he wanted it priced topping in at 300-400. Netbooks are a much better deal.
Smartphones/netbooks have pretty much filled the niche for this device. You could add a radio to the cruchpad and it would be a bad cellphone. Even if there was any kind of success here, Quanta would zip in and build a netbook with a touchscreen and put them out of business fast.
The flap over who owns it doesn't matter, it's already dead. The whole advantage of a "small team" development is to avoid issues like these all together. If Fusion and Arrington had both put everything into this project, it might have gone somewhere. But mediocre product + fractured team = failure.
Best bet now would be to open the platform and hope someone with an open OS looking for hardware saves you.
It says the weird green screen effect in those photos is a trick of the camera, but it's remarkably consistent given the different camera angles. What would cause that?
Well, they've certainly received a lot of publicity out of this. I read Tech Crunch an average amount and I actually wasn't aware at all of this device until recently. The device looks fairly average to me, and I can't image spending that much on a limited tablet style computer.
The racism in the comments over at engadget sure is unpleasant. Also, the green screened pictures is certainly doing them a disservice!
[+] [-] dbreunig|16 years ago|reply
Fusion Garage's story is infinitely more believable than Arrington's. After both sides have spoken, I imagine it went down like this:
They show him their OS in hopes of getting press and subsequent funding. Arrington loves the idea and wants in on the concept. Fusion Garage goes and actually builds the thing. Meetings take place with Fusion Garage probably passively hoping for funding through Arrington's connections and Arrington monopolizing the conversation with "product ideas" that are more pie-in-the-sky thinking than actual engineering.
In the meantime, tablet fever grips the nation and a Fusion Garage with a working prototype has no trouble scoring VC meetings. They probably had to fight off the cash being thrown at them. Suddenly they don't need Arrington and those that actually came through with funding demand they end the charade of him being a participant. All they have to do is come up with a new name (Joojoo? Come on...)
What remains to be seen is how TC's audience will react. The idea that Arrington apparently tried to glom onto the project with no engineering contributions perfectly fits the tropes discussed on HN: MBA-types make a buck off the back of those who actually built the thing. I wonder if this tale will actually hurt his rep?
Who here will approach TC and Arrington differently after today?
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|16 years ago|reply
The fact that you already have so many upvotes just perfectly illustrates how so many people still don't get that sales and marketing are just as important to product success as engineering. Maybe more. Characterizing Arrington's involvement as an attempt to "glom onto the project with no engineering contributions" is both unwarranted idle speculation and irrelevant, as there are many other contributions to be made beyond just engineering.
[+] [-] wvenable|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|16 years ago|reply
Well, no doubt many people are happy to assume that the person holding the soldering iron is automatically the one who is right.
I will make no such assumption; "infinitely" is more than a little strong. ;) All I will say is: What a lose-lose situation.
[+] [-] dskhatri|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prabodh|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bl4k|16 years ago|reply
This guy is a complete scammer and has a track record of doing exactly this. Watching HN people take his side after watching his video spin and not knowing anything else about him is just sick.
[+] [-] hristov|16 years ago|reply
That being said, Fusion Garage really fell on their face. The only thing they needed to do is come up with a name better than crunch pad, which should not have been too hard. And they come up with joojoo??? Ouch.
[+] [-] wheels|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uuilly|16 years ago|reply
It seems to me the FusionGarage people have gotten what they need from Arrington; attention. Now that he is no longer useful he's been sidelined. Kind of a Machiavellian move, since no lawsuit can undo the press they got.
Arrington was using them and they were using Arrington. Which, in the end, is the nature of all business relationships.
[+] [-] mpk|16 years ago|reply
ChromeOS just went public, Apple may or may not do some tablet thing, Arrington is somehow involved and seems to be acting like an ass again, etc.
I think someone pushed the panic button and said something along the lines of 'we go live now or the whole thing is dead!'
All-in-all not a good way to start. My magic eight-ball tells me this project is doomed.
[+] [-] michaelneale|16 years ago|reply
I do think the TechCrunch PR and marketing probably could have made it better, but perhaps there is a bit much credit and attention given to the louder mouths then is deserved.
In any case, interesting to watch, and a device like this for that price point would be awesome if anyone can pull it off.
[+] [-] maudineormsby|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bl4k|16 years ago|reply
The sooner you wake up to what marketing really is the better
[+] [-] allenbrunson|16 years ago|reply
Holy crap. I knew there was going to be more to this.
[+] [-] 9oliYQjP|16 years ago|reply
My gut tells me the whole venture is going to crash and burn. One shady business practice is indicative of a whole sh*tstorm of shady business practices and I would bet the launch of this product is met with delays, unmet promises, logistical mistakes, etc.
[+] [-] joshfinnie|16 years ago|reply
He put up the lawsuits that were filed, but I haven't seen any contracts which lead me to believe they never existed.
This is definitely a story of botched communications, but don't be so quick to believe this guy. I think when the dust settles, the truth will be somewhere in the middle of the two stories we are hearing.
[+] [-] dunk010|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maudineormsby|16 years ago|reply
My netbook will do the web and lots of other things. Like let me play Civ II.
[+] [-] conflux0|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjs382|16 years ago|reply
The thing has a USB port that could (presumably) be used for a keyboard if you required one. Wish I could get one with a full-fledged OS on it. In that case, I'd consider it.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|16 years ago|reply
Meantime, Chandra is certainly being assertive about his side of the TechCrunch saga. If his claims are true then Michael Arrington's business cred is going to take a major hit.
[+] [-] netcan|16 years ago|reply
While this may prove to be an incredibly useful device in the future, it hasn't yet. At the moment it's in the toy category, like the ipod touch. It's almost twice the acceptable price for a toy.
[+] [-] elblanco|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warfangle|16 years ago|reply
I'm really confused as to why they decided to roll their own OS rather than put a customized Android system on it.
[+] [-] dbreunig|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErrantX|16 years ago|reply
It's looking more and more like Arrington has totally screwed up contracts, agreements etc. And then it looks like this Fusion Garage CEO has a complete lack of understanding why the CrunchPad was a great name (etc)....
Im willing to bet we never actually see a product - either that or it will bomb.
[+] [-] seiji|16 years ago|reply
"Let's call it JooJoo and have the logo read iooioo even though it's supposed to be spelled JuJu![1]"
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju
[+] [-] hristov|16 years ago|reply
For people that are not aware of the website, the word "crunch" provides connotations of (i) doing numerical computations (ii) working for long hours and (iii) working out, all of which are negative connotations for a device like this.
So yes, crunch pad was a terrible name, but I think joojoo is even worse. That will just elicit bad jewish jokes.
[+] [-] maudineormsby|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjs382|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremymims|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaporstun|16 years ago|reply
That's quite an indicator that he likely had little to do with this device as Fusion Garage claims. If he'd actually done more to bring it to fruition, he would probably have taken the appropriate steps to safeguard his investment. For anyone else I may attribute a lapse like this as simply a mistake, but for an attorney to drop the ball this badly sounds quite suspicious...
[+] [-] rbanffy|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jws|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forensic|16 years ago|reply
You make all that hardware and then cripple it with limited software? Whateva. I would pay $499 if it had bluetooth and could run a normal OS.
Also, these Fusion Garage guys need to hire a marketing/PR firm STAT. Fingerprint-marred green screen and scary looking nerd glowering at the camera is bad for business.
[+] [-] mbreese|16 years ago|reply
The domain "thejoojoo.com" was registered on Nov 10th.
They told TechCrunch about the split on the 17th, and that day TechCrunch applied for the trademark.
I mean, who was running this show? Domain names and trademarks are supposed to be lined up and checked much further in advance. (Not to mention contracts...)
On a side note: this is the tech equivalent of celebrity gossip... I'm sure that much worse has happened in the past, but never this publicly.
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|16 years ago|reply
That said, I find fusion garage's side of the story pretty suspect, and even if it's true, I highly doubt they'll succeed. They seem way too focused on the product and the technology and seem to think it will market and sell itself.
I hope TechCrunch sues. Even without a written contract, there must be heaps of verbal and written evidence as to exactly what the relationship here was. Letting the courts sort it out might be the only way to get close to the truth.
[+] [-] pavs|16 years ago|reply
A tech news blog is itself a subject of news because of its hunger for drama.
[+] [-] seiji|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajaimk|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] david927|16 years ago|reply
I was looking forward to buying several Crunchpads, but it will be a cold day in hell before I ever buy a JooJoo, just from principle.
[+] [-] jsz0|16 years ago|reply
Mr. Arrington originally said the CrunchPad was not about profit. So what's the problem with Fusion Garage selling their own device? Or even selling the design to other companies? Again this strikes me as being very suspicious. Wouldn't more manufactures competing against each other be true to his original vision? Was FG unwilling to sell him this hardware to be re-branded as CrunchPads or were they unwilling to give him exclusive access to it?
[+] [-] sandee|16 years ago|reply
In between, TC claims that they did initial marketing for the product. Technically it may be correct. But From risk factor, what was at stake here for TC ? Actually TC biz model works on buzz factor. More Buzz equals more readers and Revenue. So at worst (if product fails), they made some money out of the whole buzz. But for FusionGarage (and their investors), everything was at stake.
Arrington might be correct, they could have negotiated on the product stake. ( How about : 2% for initial idea discussion, 2% for initial marketing, and 2% bring in new investors and team .) I guess such a 5-6% offer would have still led to such a breakup. (But can u give a 30% stake just for blogging about a product ?)
To me, Arrington is a Bad (Scary) Startup-Investor here (keeping the startup in guessing game till end ..), and FusionGarage has a bad CEO who could not anticipate what was to come. And those investors are smart to bring the whole stuff out before the product is actually launched.
[+] [-] wheaties|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johngalt|16 years ago|reply
The flap over who owns it doesn't matter, it's already dead. The whole advantage of a "small team" development is to avoid issues like these all together. If Fusion and Arrington had both put everything into this project, it might have gone somewhere. But mediocre product + fractured team = failure.
Best bet now would be to open the platform and hope someone with an open OS looking for hardware saves you.
[+] [-] BigZaphod|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shabda|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datums|16 years ago|reply
thejoojoo.com
Created: 2009-11-10
Expires: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2009-11-10
To ditch crunchpad or to go with joojoo
[+] [-] julio_the_squid|16 years ago|reply
The racism in the comments over at engadget sure is unpleasant. Also, the green screened pictures is certainly doing them a disservice!