AOL rips off Yahoo front page - Valleywag Comments

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

azuzuru — Sat, 05 May 2007 01:52:25 PDT

I worked at Yahoo from 2004-2004 and at AOL.com from 2004-2006.

Although AOL.com's new page clearly is a blatant ripoff of Yahoo, let's be fair. Yahoo blatantly ripped off the front and center "rotating interest story" from AOL.com ("95 year-old set to graduate" in the Yahoo screen shot, above) for its new homepage design last year.

Both sites copy from each other.

azuzuru

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

JeremyKandah — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:36:00 PDT

I heard a rumor that AOL has been testing this for a while now, and that Yahoo got a sneak peak of it and put it out before AOL did. Anyone know if this is true?

JeremyKandah

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

stupindus — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 06:06:39 PDT

It's definitely the latter: "lost all capacity for independent thought." I worked in Dulles for many years and the brain-drain has been steady and continuous. Now, their current "leaders" can only point to some other competitor and demand, "Uh, yeah. Copy dat." So Ron Grant is the "human computer." Looks like his algorithmic specialty is screen-scraping. Shameful.

stupindus

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

eknirb — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:23:29 PDT

www.yaolhoo.com

eknirb

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

hookedonredbull — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:54:33 PDT

At AOL, we are now fully embracing the Web 2.faux strategy Ron layed out for us. Next step: changing our URL to Yhaoo.com.

hookedonredbull

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

Trackback — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:36:24 PDT

Some interesting tech-related news from around the web this week. • Imitation may be a form of flattery (the sincerest kind, so they say) but AOL, I think you might have taken it a bit too far. • AT&T Chief Edward "Moneybags" Whitacre is retiring. His going away present? $158.5 Million.

Trackback

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

schvitzatura — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:23:01 PDT

Nick was authenticated in the Yahoo! screenshot, but not in the AOL one.

Not that it would have made any real difference...

schvitzatura

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

eknirb — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:21:55 PDT

that's just amazing. sort of like Google copying the Yahoo IE7 page. (Or was it the other way around?)

But I don't know what the fuss is. No one uses AOL anymore........................do they?

eknirb

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

JamaicanMeCrazy — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:53:10 PDT

The AOL campus in Mountain View is responsible for several sites on the portal. I know UI designers that left AOL for Yahoo, and UI designers who have left Yahoo for AOL. It's not surprising that they end up looking so similar.

JamaicanMeCrazy

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

AndyDuncan — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:22:47 PDT

This kind of crap happens all the time when you put a non-designer in charge of a design project. The conversation typically goes something like this: "What are our competitors doing? They wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't working! Let's copy them and then iterate to improve upon it!"

What usually ends up happening is you get a craptacular version of the competitors design, missing all the useful features and not working as well ("that stuff is hard!") but on the surface appearing to be just close enough to satisfy the manager in charge.

Then, when it fails miserably, the designer gets blamed.

Err... I mean.... I've HEARD that's what happens....

AndyDuncan

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

telebyte — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:11:31 PDT

Or maybe a fresh idea... AOL-TW buys Yahoo! Now that the web 2.0 boom is just about out of steam, TW has decided to keep AOL, so isn't the next logical stage an over-valued acquisition? They have already set their own example!

telebyte

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

teleprax — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:06:02 PDT

I feel like I just walked into an art gallery full of people discussing whether 'Dogs Playing Poker' is a forgery.

teleprax

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

Nick Denton — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:02:07 PDT

@soxiam: Hey, actually, I think we both got a tip-off from the same person. Arrington put his piece up overnight; I'm on the East Coast right now, and put up the item first thing my morning, before even looking at Techcrunch. When Arrington has a story, we give him credit, and then mock him, if at all possible.

Nick Denton

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

Seabass — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:41:47 PDT

There's a "Give Us Feedback" link on top of the AOL page.

I agree that UI theft happens to some degree, but this is just blatant.

Seabass

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

ScalaWag — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:31:54 PDT

Well, UI theft happens all the time. The question is how far do you go to mask it. So this looks simply like sloppiness. No?

ScalaWag

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

soxiam — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:15:51 PDT

I want to comment on something I've been noticing a lot on valleywag. I'm all for re-telling of stories first reported elsewhere (especially if valleywag versions are far more entertaining than the original version as they usually do) but why not at least credit the source of your articles? As in this particular case: TechCrunch.

soxiam

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

steliosx — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:15:50 PDT

since when has this beta homepage been in the works? some people claim that it's been worked on before yahoo launched. I mean, c'mon, why would aol ever do that? I fail to see the point.

steliosx

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

MrZebra — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:00:19 PDT

It's not so obvious, but portuguese internet service provider and search engine Sapo (www.sapo.pt) should be added to the list of Yahoo rip offs.

And it's not even an elegant rip off.

MrZebra

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

Rockwell — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:35:49 PDT

I disagree with cv. Site ripoffs are a dime a dozen but this takes things to the next level. I mean come on, they're identical!

Rockwell

AOL rips off Yahoo front page

cv — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:23:53 PDT

Unsurprising.

After all, pretty much every major online retailer photo-copied Amazon.com's layout, used white-out on the Amazon.com logo, and stuck their's on.

You guys didn't report that Excite.com's homepage is a ripoff of My Yahoo!

There is nothing new here.