OMG, How Tacky!
I know, I know, calling Yahoo tacky is like calling the sky blue. And my point is?
But anyway. Frank from OMG Blog writes with news that Yahoo! has ripped him off:
In case you were wondering: No, I have not partnered with Yahoo! to create yet another derivative celebrity gossip rag. They are just flagrantly copying !! omg blog !! in more ways than they should.
!! omg blog !! has been around with its current graphic design since July, 2003. For my newer readers, that was back before Yahoo! even knew what a blog was and when Pink is the New Blog was white and lavender.
Since then, our readership has grown to the point that it would be impossible for the folks at Yahoo! not to have visited !! omg blog !! at least once (if not daily).
Content-wise, I can’t claim the sole right to post photos of Paris Hilton pumping gas (especially in light of my strict no-Hilton-content-ever policy), but I do take special offense at the direct thievery of my blog’s name, punctuation, and color scheme.
Of course blatant imitation is rife in the sex blog world — I can’t tell you how many Erosblog imitators have come and gone, but it’s more than a handful — but we do expect better from major media properties that employ designers and creative people out the wazoo. I doubt Frank can do much about this except name and shame — as he acknowledges, there aren’t really any core intellectual property rights being infringed on here — but some naming and shaming does indeed seem appropriate.
Also, maybe some booing?
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=1969
What exactly is the claim? The use of the same three letters that the rest of the internet uses and a pink accent?
If Microsoft made this sort of claim, we would be laughing at them for blatant stupidity.
omgblog needs a beating with a cluestick.
Er, Ken, you’re riding the ragged edge when it comes to the civility I require in the ErosBlog comments.
Moving on, I disagree.
It’s a lazy “we’ll just copy the name and styling of a successful blog like the one we want to do” thing.
You honestly think Yahoo did theirs without looking around to see what was out there?
Fuck no. They saw, they imitated.
It’s not a “claim”, it’s just obvious what happened.
Notwithstanding that it’s apparently “obvious,” I don’t see it. The layout is different, the colours are different (Pink and blue on black = pink and grey on bright orange? Really?), the fonts are different, and the content is only similar in a broadly thematic way.
If not for the name, I doubt anyone would have consciously drawn any connection at all between the original OMG Blog and Yahoo’s thing. Frank would be wise to let this go; whatever overlap there may be, it’s most likely not provable to any legal standard.
Yes Sir, i agree. and commenting about it .. as it was ordered.
Though, sometimes imitation is the best form of flattery, that makes no one any money. i say we boycott! *coughs
I’m laughing here TMZ. The name and the theme are pretty much the defining characteristics of a blog. So, you don’t see anything similar, except for the name and the theme? Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying, too. I’d argue that starting a blog about the same theme, and picking roughly the same name, is enough to warrant derision.
We’re in agreement about legalities, that was never my point. My point was that this is reprehensible, not illegal.
I claim that [link deleted] and [link deleted] have a lot more in common than [link deleted] and [link deleted].
Links left column, ads right column, nude photos center. Similar subject matter and names. Should we be upset about this or are the two sites different enough that we just don’t care?
And what exactly is the theme to omgblog? When you say yahoo copied the theme, what theme did they copy, the look and feel, the subject matter, what? I’m not understanding this. Should we be expecting yahoo to have photos of a cute cat with it’s head in a jar sometime soon?
The only similarity I see is the “OMG” part of each blog’s name. Unoriginal on Yahoo’s part, but it’s not a blatant rip off.
Had I accidentally stumbled across both sites, I doubt I would have made the connection between the two.
Boycott? I’ve been boycotting Yahoo since they ruined Adult Groups by taking them out of their groups search engine.
Yahoo have always steamrolled over people and demonstrated that they might have been the first big internet company, but they don’t UNDERSTAND the internet.
Folks, look at the sites and judge for yourself. If you don’t agree that the similarity is deliberate and tacky, you don’t agree. I’m not here (any longer) to argue with you, just to draw attention so that folks can judge for themselves. It is what it is.