Google Shuts Down Translation API, PayPal Restricts Masspay
Agriya builds many of its latest applications using 3rd party API’s and functionalities to provide a richer environment for the users of your website. Whether it’s Facebook Connect to let your users login with their Facebook details or Google Maps to provide geo-targeted based content, we strive to offer something more than what our competitors are offering.
Unfortunately using 3rd party tools to add additional functionality puts you at the mercy of those providers and as it turns out two of our biggest providers have cut off the services which many of our customers relied on.
The first is service to be cut off is Google Translation. We used this tool to enable our clients to quickly and easily translate their entire website in to over 50 languages at a click of a button. Agriya were one of the only providers to offer this service and it was extremely cost effective when compared to hiring a professional translator to translate the thousands of words of text.
Google has decided that using the Google Translation API should no longer be free and as some of our customers have found out, any attempts to translate your site now using the built in code will be prevented. In the place of the free Google Translation service, Google have implemented an Enterprise solution where you can pay to machine translate the text on your website. Agriya is looking in to this new API to see if there is a way we can offer cost effective translation services for your website. In the meantime all Agriya’s products let you manually translate your website.
Google’s decision to turn the Google Translation API affects all Agriya products
The second tool that has been restricted to affect our customers is PayPal’s Mass Payment function. Many of our products made use of the PayPal Mass Pay function so that the admin could pay the sellers on their website. For reasons that are not entirely clear, PayPal has started to disable this function in many PayPal accounts which means that our customers can no longer pay all their sellers with one click of a button.
We’re still not sure why PayPal are doing this but from what little information we have received it could be connected with the account activity on your website. Unfortunately there is no way to enable this feature and you will need to beg to PayPal to let you have it.
There are a couple of workarounds available. The first is Agriya will be making sure you can pay your sellers individually and hope to have this new functionality available soon. The second is the adaptive payments option which is available on some of our products where the seller gets paid instantly rather than having to request a withdrawal.
PayPal’s decision to restrict the Mass Pay option affects the following products
- GroupDeal
- FPPlatform
- FPPlatformUltraPlus
- Burrow
- GetLancer
- GroupWithUs
- SFPlatform
- BuySell
- CoupReseller
- Flipit
We’re really sorry about the inconvenience this may cause you and hope to have suitable workarounds in place as early as possible. Agriya is always striving to make better products and incorporate useful features that our clients want, but as you can see here we’re still at the mercy and whims of 3rd party providers.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Fiverr Declares War On Fixed Price Job Portals
Very Important: See update at the end of this post
It all started last week when one of the biggest fixed price job portals, a serious alternative to Fiverr, contacted Agriya and mentioned that their account had been frozen without any warning by PayPal. Naturally we were concerned because this person was our client and we often referred potential customers to their site to showcase our ability.
Further investigations revealed that the account was shut down at the request of Fiverr International Ltd who argued that the site was infringing upon their Intellectual Property.
A few days later and more clients contacted Agriya stating that their PayPal accounts had also been frozen, and FiverrWay wrote a long article about some of the other sites that have been affected.
So far, no concrete reason has been given for why the accounts were shut down, further more, there is no explanation on how Fiverr International Ltd even have the power to request that other company’s PayPal accounts be closed. If Intellectual Property Rights have been infringed then the correct procedure is to file a DMCA notice and give the defendant the option to file a counter claim.
Agriya find it deeply disturbing that PayPal have acted against many other companies without consultation – something which they have a history of doing in the past. It also defies belief that the Fiverr International Ltd and PayPal haven’t notified the site owners about the complaint.
Why Have Fiverr International Ltd Complained To PayPal?
Although we don’t know the exact reason why Fiverr International Ltd have complained directly to PayPal instead of to the site owner, there could always be a chance that they have some influence within the company to get these accounts frozen (Agriya definitely isn’t saying this is the case but it makes a cool conspiracy theory!). We don’t know of any other cases where a person has a legitimate PayPal account accepting payments for legitimate goods and services and then being shut down due to a complaint by a competitor. However, the grounds for the complaint remain a mystery and we only have speculation to go on, which includes:
- Fiverr have someone working in or have a strong influence in PayPal
- Someone at Fiverr felt that the design and code had been stolen (which it definitely hasn’t!)
- Fiverr took exception to the competitor sites using their brand name as leverage (ie. Best Fiverr Alternative)
- Fiverr didn’t like that competitors were copying their layout
- Fiverr didn’t like that competitors were copying their terminology
- Competitor sites were copying the text and instructions from the Fiverr website
With the exception of the first option, all the other options could have been conducted via DMCA notifications.
Does Fiverr Own Any Trademarks?
It was mentioned on one blog that the accounts could have been closed due to trademark infringements. Now clearly Agriya are not experts in Trademark Law, but there does appear to be three problems to this opinion though:
- Trademark and copyright infringements should be dealt with directly with the person or company who is infringing. PayPal have no legal power to decide whether or not a company is infringing upon the trademarks or copyright of another company
- Fiverr International Ltd don’t actually have any trademarks at the moment (it should be noted that Fiverr International Ltd do have copyright to all the text, graphics and scripts on their site)
- Fiverr International Ltd currently do not own any patents for their site or software
On the Fiverr.com website, Fiverr International Ltd state that:
FIVERR, $5 GIG, GIGS, I Will … For, The Things People Do For $5, DamnQuickPay, Fiverr graphics, logos, scripts, terms of use, instructions, designs and other service names are the trademarks and copyright of Fiverr International Limited
This immediately set off alarm bells because surely no one can trademark the phrase “I will … For”, it’s a hugely popular saying within the Internet community to say things like “I will code For food” and variations thereof. To find out for sure we went to the US Patent and Trademarks Office and used their search engine to look for Fiverr International Ltd’s trademarks.
To search for US trademarks you can go to http://tess2.uspto.gov/
What we found was that Fiverr International Ltd have APPLIED for various trademarks on 3rd November 2010, however the applications are all under review, it appears (again, we’re not legal eagles here, just looking at the terminology) they have NOT been granted any trademarks yet, even for the name Fiverr.
According to USPTO the Fiverr trademark is still waiting to be reviewed
Going back to our reservations about trademarking the phrase “I Will … For”, Fiverr International Ltd have applied for a trademark, but it doesn’t appear to be for that exact phrase, if you look at what they are trying to trademark it includes the words AND an empty box AND the addition of $5, the full trademark they have applied for is shown in the image below:
Fiverr look to trademark a phrase and image
Can Fiverr Trademark Terms Like Gigs and $5 GIG?
Technically you can apply to trademark any word or phrase, however if it already exists in the database then it will be rejected, further if you want to trademark a generic phrase for an industry then it may be rejected.
However, if the USPTO accepts Fiverr International Ltd’s trademark applications the phrases still have to go through a 30 day opposition period. According to the Houston Internet Law website, all trademarks that have passed the review are published online in the Official Gazette of the Patent and Trademark office.
It’s simply a case of monitoring the process of Fiverr International Ltd’s application and if it’s approved then watching out in the online publications to see when it is announced so that an opposition can be raised. With so many people affected by Fiverr International Ltd and PayPal’s actions we think there might be quite a few people who oppose some of the trademarks!
The Solution To The Problem
Since we don’t know what the exact reason for PayPal taking it upon themselves to be the judge, jury and executioner we only have some general suggestions on how to fix this:
- Switch to a new e-Currency, Agriya is working to integrate AlertPay and Moneybookers in to our FP Platform – existing customers please contact us for pricing
- Remove any reference to Fiverr on your site
- Ensure that your site doesn’t copy any text from fiverr.com
- Consider changing the design to something more unique
- Come up with some ideas that are totally unique
What Action Are Agriya Taking?
First things first, Agriya hasn’t copied any code or graphics from Fiverr.com, we have built our software in Cake PHP and designed the layout from scratch. Agriya is taking care to ensure that no text has been copied from the fiverr.com website in our FP Platform software and that the word ‘fiverr’ isn’t mentioned anywhere. Furthermore we are looking in to alternative wording and phrases like ‘gig’ – perhaps the Fixed Price Jobs industry can help us out to develop some completely new terminology!
Also, we are looking for many alternative payment systems and are in the process of integrating AlertPay and Moneybookers as standard for new clients. If you are an existing client please contact us for pricing on integrating a new payment system in to your site.
Final Thoughts
Your input on this disturbing chain of events is appreciated, why do you think PayPal can act in such an appalling manner without giving any opportunity to appeal? Why have Fiverr International Ltd gone directly to PayPal to complain about Intellectual Property Rights infringement instead of through the regular channels – and why have they been able to force PayPal to shut down competitor accounts?
Invitation To Fiverr
Although we don’t expect to hear from you, we would like to invite authorized representatives from Fiverr to come here and clearly state the problem you have with your competitors including specific Intellectual Property Rights which you feel have been infringed. By not being transparent about your actions or not providing any reasons then it only builds resentment against your company.
Invitation to PayPal
Again, we don’t expect to hear anything from you, but being crystal clear about exactly why Fiverr International Ltd has the ability to get competitor PayPal accounts shut down.
23rd November Update
We’ve got reports that both GigBux and UpHype are back up and running with their PayPal accounts. We’re just trying to get some more information from the admins to post it here on how they got PayPal off their back. Also, some other Agriya clients, Dealerr and Cinkue haven’t reported any problems to date.
24th November Update
We’ve had some very strong indications that the reason Fiverr International Ltd have made the complaints is because reference is made to the trademarks that they have submitted. From the site owners we have talked to that have managed to get their accounts back you need to prove to PayPal that you haven’t infringed upon any intellectual property or trademarks – use references to the USPTO website that show Fiverr International Ltd have not been granted any trademarks yet.
Furthermore, there is no way Fiverr can claim trademarks over the word Gigs when craigslist.org have been using the phrase for many years now (see the bottom right hand corner of their site).
Another client of Agriya also mentioned that they owned several trademarks and doing the admin for it is a nightmare because they have to check the Official Gazette of the Patent and Trademark office very frequently to make sure no trademarks are being considered that are similar to the ones he owns. He believes that even if the USPTO get a few objections then the trademark will not be given – particularly for the word ‘Gigs’ and ‘I will for’, however the word ‘Fiverr’ could be given as it is a unique business name, but it could be objected to on the grounds that it is similar to ‘fiver’ which is slang for $5 or €5 or £5.
5th January 2011 Update
It now appears that PayPal have understood that Fiverr have got no basis for their copyright infringement claims and from the reports we have received virtually everyone now has their PayPal accounts reinstated.
Happy news all round!
Agriya Releases Fiverr Clone Ultra
The phenomenal success of Fiverr and it’s many clones has caught many industry experts by surprise. When Agriya released the first ever Fiverr clone back in the early part of 2010 a lot of people didn’t even know what the site was about. 10 months on and there are new clones launching every day targeting different niches and different countries.
Agriya’s Fiverr clone has been the most successful turnkey software on the market with 8 of the top 10 micro job sites now using Agriya’s software. Recent successes include Cinkue who won the best startup award in Italy, GigBucks who sold their site for $5,500 and Zeerk who sold their site for over $60,000 – and it was less than 6 months old!
Introducing: Fiverr Clone Ultra
Over the past few months our developers have been tinkering away with the code and experimenting with different payment setups and we are pleased to announce that we have developed a brand new and seamless way for you and your members to get paid – infact, the entire payment system can run on autopilot.
Update: Since announcing the launch of FP Platform Ultra, Fiverr introduced their own version of quick payments which they call DamnQuickPay. In this instance Agriya was the first to the market with the option to pay sellers immediately without any admin interaction. After closely studying Fiverr’s quick pay option we realized that actually FP Platform Ultra has a closer integration with PayPal as it doesn’t rely on the wallet system, the user gets paid automatically when the buyer gives a good review.
This is just one of the many ways in which Agriya is working to bring innovations to the industry and web development in general.
The old payment system had a process shown in the flow diagram below:
The Current Payment Process
Essentially the buyer would pay the site owner (that’s you if you own the site) and then you can pay the person when they request the payment – it has the mass pay option built in which means you just need to click a few buttons, but what if you can’t get to the computer for a couple of days, there’s nothing like angry members that are complaining that they haven’t got their money yet!
The new system uses PayPal Adaptive Payments and while the flow diagram looks more complicated, basically it means that your members can be paid instantly without any input by you.
Fiverr Clone Ultra With PayPal Adaptive Payments
Here’s how it works…
- The buyer orders a gig and pays the money to the seller
- The seller can accept or decline the order
- If the order is accepted, the money is transferred to a pending account
- If the order is declined the money is transferred back to the buyer
- If the seller neither accepts or declines the order the money will be returned after a pre-determined time period
- The buyer can also cancel the payment before the seller takes any action
- The seller works to deliver the service
- If the service runs over the allotted duration it enters Overtime, if the seller still doesn’t deliver the payment is cancelled and the money returned to the seller
- When the seller marks the service as Delivered the buyer can review the service and the payment is completed. Alternatively the script can be set to auto-review
- After Review or Auto-Review the money is cleared in the sellers account
There are also a number of other options associated with this new payment system such as a built escrow service, setting who pays the PayPal fee, creating PayPal accounts without leaving the site, the site admin can earn referral commission on new accounts they sign up, users can connect their PayPal accounts and many more cool features.
The new Fiverr Clone Ultra is a branch of the current Fiverr Clone script so you can choose to use the traditional payment system or the new Ultra payment system. Just let us know when you contact us what version you want to use. If you would like to switch your current site to use the new payment option please contact us and we’ll quote a price to do the conversion.
If you want to setup your own turnkey Micro Jobs website that works exactly like Fiverr (but with a few additional exclusive features) then visit our Fiverr script page which will give you more details about our software. You can also use the Live Chat button at the top of this page to speak to a customer rep, you can call us on +1 773 358 2979 (US) or +44 20 3287 5567 (UK) or you can shoot us an email by filling out the form on our Fiverr clone page.
What actually is outsourcing?
So I’m going to pose a question to you that might seem a little strange.
What is outsourcing?
And maybe later on, I’ll ask another question: Why should you outsource?
If you have been online or in the business world for any amount of time, when someone says to you: “let’s outsource” it probably conjurs up images of sending all the work to a different country that has lower costs, and results in people losing their jobs.
I think that’s a very narrow minded view of outsourcing.
What outsourcing is about is leveraging the skills of others to enable you to focus on your core business.
Recently Agriya had a requirement to create new digital product boxes for one of the new products we’re going to launch. (If you are not in the know, these graphics are called ecovers in the business).
Unfortunately our designers didn’t have any experience creating product boxes and 2 days was wasted trying to get a product box that looked really professional. We usually charge $15-$20 an hour for our designer, so in business terms, we wasted at least $240 in direct costs, it doesn’t take in to account the time I wasted trying to explain to the designer how to create a product box.
What I should have done was recognise that we didn’t have the skills for this small project and outsourced the job to a professional. Instead I tried to do it inhouse and wasted time and money.
When I eventually came to my senses, I hooked up with a designer called Hrvoje from Croatia who’s an expert in creating these kind of product box graphics. I gave him my requirements, paid him $67 and later that day I got an extremely professional graphic that my designers wouldn’t have been able to ever achieve.
The moral of the story is this: you might think it’s ‘cheaper’ or ‘easier’ to do a project inhouse because you are not paying out any money. But if you are not an expert in the project you are trying to do, consider the indirect costs where your staff are working on internal (non-money making) projects as opposed to client projects which earn the company money. In the end, outsourcing to an expert can work out a whole lot cheaper and quicker.
As for the results we got? See for yourself.
Our thanks goes to Hrvoje of eCoversLab.com for his quick and professional work.
Could your company do with outsourcing your IT projects to some experts? Are you wasting time trying to learn new skills in order to complete a project? Agriya is perfectly placed as a preferred outsourcing partner to take on a wide range of web development projects, giving you the ability to focus on your core business and save time and money on your project.
Get in touch with us at info@agriya.com for further details.
Related Posts from the Past:
Categories
- Agriya Events (6)
- Agriya Ideas (3)
- Agriya News (102)
- Anova (11)
- Burrow (5)
- BuySell (3)
- Channel (6)
- Client Interviews (1)
- Computer Security (7)
- Crowdsourcing (1)
- Developers (2)
- Extensions (1)
- Feedy (1)
- FP Platform (9)
- GroupDeal (9)
- GroupWithUs (1)
- Holidays (1)
- internet (16)
- Internet News (57)
- iSocial (8)
- latest technology (21)
- Life @ Agriya (1)
- online marketing (15)
- PartyPlanet (1)
- search engines (8)
- SEO Game (18)
- SF Platform (1)
- Social Media News (17)
- social networking (43)
- Volume (3)
- Web 2.0 (8)
- web design (6)
- Webmaster Articles (113)
Archives
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin