Facebook Paper Name Change? FiftyThree CEO, Maker Of Popular 'Paper' App, Says His Brand Came First

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) released its new Paper app, which the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social network revealed last week, on the iTunes store on Monday. The app has so far received glowing reviews, with some saying it’s an even better way to read a Facebook News Feed than the actual Facebook app -- but not everyone is happy with Paper.

The folks over at FiftyThree, a company that released its own Paper app back in 2012, are especially unhappy. The app has gotten terrific reviews on the iTunes store and has even won Apple’s 2012 iPad App of the Year award. Now, Fifty Three is asking Facebook to use a different name for its new app.

“We think Facebook can apply the same degree of thought they put into the app into a building a brand name of their own,” Georg Petschnigg, the co-founder and CEO of FiftyThree, wrote on the company’s blog. Petschnigg stated that his whole company was surprised and confused when Facebook announced its new app. Some even wondered if FiftyThree had been acquired by Facebook.

“An app about stories shouldn’t start with someone else’s story,” Petschnigg wrote. “Facebook should stop using our brand name.”

FiftyThree is a Facebook developer, and Petschnigg said that almost 500,000 original pages made from Paper have been shared to Facebook. A member of Facebook’s board is even an investor in FiftyThree.

Facebook has apologized to FiftyThree for not informing them about the name of their own app, but has not proposed a solution to this naming drama.