1) Change your name. Tweet + Digg sounds like a social media parody. Also, I don't think you can use the word "tweet" in your name without risking being sued by Twitter. And, if you grow, you may expand beyond filtering Tweets.
2) Your audience and customers are people that use Twitter for business - small businesses, marketing departments, ad agencies, etc. Take a look at other firms in that space (SEOMoz, Buddy Media, HootSuite and see how they do things. Right now your language is geared towards consumers that like Twitter. Change that. Your website needs to explain to a small business how you can help them make more money.
3) It IS a good idea. Social media filtering is a big problem. You are just selling it to the wrong people.
As far as I know using "Tweet" in your name isn't too big an issue (look at Tweetdeck pre-acquisition). Based on how Twitter have been tightening the rules on how we use their platform recently though, it might be something to look at.
Our target audience at the moment is power users who would give us constructive criticism. We thought that any businesses would be reluctant to give us a go whilst things are changing so rapidly. This thread is giving us a reason to rethink that decision though.
Don't forget touch. In the last 5 years we've moved from a world where most computer interaction happened with a monitor on a desk and a virtual mouse pointer. Now many consumers user smartphones as their primary computer - which they hold in their hand and touch with their fingers. This made the computing experience more emotional and personal and there the "experience" part of the software a lot more important.
We are not affiliated in any way. We have come across them before and we feel the name and market is different enough to not be a problem. As for the logo, it's kinda difficult to make a fire (as in, blaze) look different.
Our name story is that, our original project name was just "stack" but stack.com was taken. After struggling for a new name, a historic chimney stack local to us caught fire and the newspaper headline was "Stack Blaze".
IANAL, but I have had to deal with trademark issues and as I understand trademark law you would be considered to be in exactly the same market. The difference between, say, pet food and hosting would be considered relevant, not between storing backups and storing PHP websites.
Also, regardless of whether you did so or not, the logo really does look like a slightly masked copy. Do an image search for "blaze" to see a number of possible treatments on that theme that would not result in such a resemblance.
I am less sure about the name, but the difference is swapping "b" with "st", so I wouldn't be surprised if that would also be considered trademark infringement.
Anyway, it depends how you understand "not a problem"; You might feel morally justified, but I believe that legally you are on pretty shaky grounds. On the other hand, Backblaze would have to kick up a fuss for that to actually matter.
Was just reading your website and saw the Joe Vs. The Volcano clip. That's one of my favorite movies and I've never met anyone else that has even heard of it, much less quotes from it. We might have to be friends.
Ordinarily, I'd agree with that criticism. But the preceding paragraphs talk about her modeling experience (which is valid because it's a fashion-related startup). So to me it seems fair to play off that.
Yeah, that just sounds like journalistic flair to me. You could easily see the same from the other direction, "Mr. Schwarzenegger isn't just a bundle of muscles..."
As the article points out, the gym wants you to come once (not have fun) and then not come back - but continue to pay the monthly membership fee.
If the gym was fun, and every member came in regularly, the gym would go out of business. Their goal is to make the gym seem like something you should have a membership for (lots of high-tech looking machines and posters about health and attractive staff), but actually not fun enough for you to come more than a few times a month.
This is why there is a rise in the small group-focused workout clubs (that emphasize fun).
I did almost exactly the same thing on one of my websites (screenshots showing the user what to click on to complete the download).
I started getting customer support requests complaining that the "Download window could not be clicked on and was stuck to the web page".
Turns out users thought that the explanatory screenshots were the ACTUAL download dialogs and they were trying to click the images in the web page. Oops.
Turns out I needed to resize the screenshots and discolor them slightly so it was obvious they were the REAL buttons to click.
There used to be a screenshot on my front page. I was totally mystified by the following comment until I installed CrazyEgg and saw the hot spot: "I clicked on the New button and nothing happened."
FWIW, some savvy folks I know suggest rotating them such that the screenshot appears to me at an angle to the monitor (hold your right hand up such that it is parallel to your screen, now rotate your writst back an inch -- like that), which apparently cuts down on this misconception quite a bit.
If you distribute software to non-programmers, check your stats for # of downloads started vs. # of applications started (or new users). My guess is that they are way off:
Most computer users do not know what a "Downloads" folder is.
Incidentally, I think downloading or saving any kind of file, and then having to "find" it from the entire set of accessible files is one of the worst UI offenses still remaining in modern machines.
I just downloaded/saved something, why do I have to spend time "re-finding it" if I want to access it in another context?
Yes AIR has a fantastic install process, even installing AIR it's self.
With the install badge you could also detect if it was already installed, and launch rather than download.
It would shock you how many people would download and install an app every time they wanted to run it.
There is no wonder why something like the app store on iOS is used by so many non techy people and so popular. Especially when you think you could install apps on phones before this...
2) Your audience and customers are people that use Twitter for business - small businesses, marketing departments, ad agencies, etc. Take a look at other firms in that space (SEOMoz, Buddy Media, HootSuite and see how they do things. Right now your language is geared towards consumers that like Twitter. Change that. Your website needs to explain to a small business how you can help them make more money.
3) It IS a good idea. Social media filtering is a big problem. You are just selling it to the wrong people.