Mark Forrester

Regator steals Afrigator’s brand

Well they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but when someone quite blatantly steals not only your design, but your idea it can be a little more insulting.

RegatorRegator, a new blog aggregator, has received quite some media attention today with articles in Read Write Web, Techcrunch and on Mashable.

None of the articles posted seem to mention its uncanny resemblance to our Afrigator.com. Perhaps because our service was developed and is focussed on deepest, darkest Africa they thought they could get away with it, without anyone noticing?

Afrigator Branding

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6 responses

  1. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    Hey Mark …

    I agree with you on the “deepest, darkest Africa” point 100%.

    This is seriously the lowest of the low when people do this. Do they not even realise that it undermines their OWN brains, whether it be ideas or design skills etc etc.

    I would even remove the link from this post. One less inbound link eh?

    Have you contacted the owners? Saying that, there is no direct (exact like for like) copying of design, branding etc like what happened with Damien’s site (Coda.co.za) a while back? So it would be interesting to hear what they say.

    Reply
  2. Bryce lloyd Avatar
    Bryce lloyd

    As Dave says, just show’s how it lacks creativity, whom ever set it up clearly can’t think for themselves, or failed to do any market research..

    Reply
  3. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    UPDATE:
    Justin has been in contact with Scott of Regator, who seems a very decent guy, and apparently resolved the issue. Scott gave Justin a beta test login yesterday and after Justin took a snoop around he apparently noted a lot of differences in functionality between Afrigator and Regator.

    Scott has claimed the brand likeness a pure coincidence and our team now agrees. I’m probably the most skeptical of the lot, and agree with the comments above about Regator doing some better market research, but we will not be taking this matter any further.

    Reply
  4. Scott Lockhart Avatar
    Scott Lockhart

    Hi! This is Scott, one of the Co-Founders of Regator.com.
    I had the pleasure of chatting with Justin and the afrigator guys today and they have fully retracted what they said earlier about Regator stealing their brand or doing anything close to copyright infringement, as our site is anything but identical to theirs, even by coincidence. Once they actually saw the site and we had a chat it was obvious. They are good guys and this was just a misunderstanding that snowballed. Shows you can’t believe everything you hear on the internet…

    You can see Afrigator Co-Founder Justin Hartman’s post here: http://justinhartman.com/2008/07/04/regatorcom-…

    And here is one setting it straight from Mike @ Afrigator:
    http://www.mikestopforth.com/2008/07/05/afrigator-speaks-to-regator-issue-resolved/

    Cheers!

    Reply
  5. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Thanks for popping by Scott and leaving a comment. I hope we’ve all set this to rest now and I look forward to seeing both Afrigator and Regator growing from strength to strength in unique directions.

    Reply
  6. schizo the fitscho Avatar
    schizo the fitscho

    It’s obvious to everyone that one is an aligator and the other a crocodile. Two entirely different things. Entirely.

    Reply

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