15 December 2009 | Author: J. Cave SEO Consultant

Plurk accuses Microsoft of theft

Plurk, a microblogging Asian website has accused Microsoft of both ripping of its design and elements of its code in Microsoft's new social networking site.

According to a blog post from Plurk, "Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world. Yes, we're talking about Microsoft..."

While Microsoft has said that it's investigating the matter, the website still remained up for quite a while. Now, according to Technologizer.com, Microsoft have decided to take the social networking site down while they investigate the matter.

According to Microsoft, when Plurk initially posted the allegations on its blog it was the middle of the night in China making it impossible to get anything done until workers in China reported for work.

Speaking about the incident a spokesperson for Microsoft said: "Our MSN China joint venture contracted with an independent vendor to create a feature called MSN Juku that allowed MSN users to find friends via microblogging and online games".

Not that this is a viable excuse for those in charge of overseeing the Juku project at Microsoft, if allegations are proved to be founded. If Microsoft were attempting to move itself into the Chinese microblogging and online gaming arena, surely it would have been more than aware of some of the major players - like Plurk - through their market research.

In a post on Techcrunch, Michael Arrington concludes that perhaps Microsoft's PR nightmare is the best thing to ever happen to Plurk.