It might be true that there is no such thing as an original idea. Everything, at one point or another, is copied from something else. Some call this inspiration, others, copyright infringement. I call it a fact of life. Yes, it completely and utterly sucks. No one likes to see their blood, sweat and tears earn others business or praise. It’s like seeing someone else take credit for your children, unconscionable.
But what is one to do?
This happened to me a couple years ago. I was going through my web logs and noticed some disproportionally high activity from one particular domain. When I visited it, to my shock, I saw my entire site, photos and all, copied by someone in the US. Not only did he steal my look and feel, CSS and Javascript, the perpetrator had the gall to hotlink to my images. You can see a side-by-side comparison of the two sites here [250K]. See if you can which one is the copy. Hint: I’m not a Mystic Warrior of Rage.
It wasn’t the first time this has happened, but it was the first time I saw my entire site lifted. Granted my site was in a web designer inspiration book, but come on!
So I did what every rational guy in my situation would do, I called him right away (long distance charges be damned, this was my baby we were talking about!). Of course, no reply. Then I e-mailed him a stern message about his violating my copyright. His reply? The site was merely an interpretation of mine, he overhauled all my “bad code” and all the images were “rightfully” obtained through Google’s image search. A few gentlemanly emails later, he agreed to take down my photos, but he wouldn’t change his code.
So, once again I did what every rational guy in my situation would do, I broke his site [220K] (scroll down for the full effect). Unfortunately, the screenshot doesn’t capture the blinking effect I placed on the image, but you get the point.
Did doing this make me feel better? Of course it did. Was it the right thing to do? I’m not certain. Am I proud of my pettiness and actions? Not particularly, but what’s done is done.
Perhaps I could of gotten the law involved. I could of Google bombed him. I could of just been flattered that he copied my work. But in the end, there’s the right thing to do, and there’s the practical thing to do. Was hiring a lawyer worth it in this case? Not really, the guy was obviously small potatoes, and wasn’t getting much business anyways - as exhibited by his lack-lustre portfolio [250K]. Was I losing revenue because of his site? No, as he was in another country altogether. Was he going to gain business from copying my site? Perhaps he could attract some interest, but he definitely lacked the talent to back it up. So I left it at that. I left his blinking, broken site as is, and moved on.
How to avoid being ripped-off
In short, you can’t. You can set up all sorts of mechanisms to protect your work. But unless you’re a large company, with an army of copyright lawyers, there’s not a whole lot you can do to avoid being ripped-off. But if you’re a small enough operation, and agile enough, there is one thing you can do:
One-up yourself regularly
Redesign your site regularly. New CSS and Javascript techniques are created every day, why not use your redesigns as platforms to display and hone your pixel-prowess? Use your redesigns to create an awareness of your talent and your ability to regularly renew yourself. By doing so, not only will you will benefit by staying at the forefront of web design, you help keep yourself relevant. Just remember this:
Talent will outpace the hacks every time.
Have you ever been ripped off? What did do about it?
I’ve noticed a rise in what I call “Fortune Cookie Bloggers”, essentially so-called Social Media Experts whose blogs read more like fortune cookies rather than anything with any real insight. Their posts tend to all share the same qualities - they’re vague, safe and forgettable.
These bloggers never say anything concrete, don’t take sides, and they start artificial conversations using Yoda-esque happy-talk. Just as a fortune cookie might tell you that patience is a virtue, or that true happiness is enjoying friends’ company (add the words, “in bed” as you wish), fortune cookie bloggers also say things of little to no usable value. Typical advice usually includes phrases like “build your online brand” and “engage your community” without once offering any details about how to do so.
The best bloggers not only say all the ra-ra Yoda-eque stuff, but they also bring up points of discussion and, most importantly, their opinion. What use is a blog if all it does is rehash old ideas and never takes a stance of its own? Without an opinion, a blog merely becomes a glorified book report.
But despite their empty talk, fortune cookie bloggers do attract a lot of visitors. I think it’s because their posts are bite-sized, and sound important, just like fortune cookies. The big difference here is that a fortune cookie doesn’t pass itself off as an expert or Confucius. You know going in that the cookie is just that, a cookie. You would never base your life nor your online strategy on it. When an online expert writes posts that come off as gospel and just lets their followers pull whatever random meanings they want out of them, I consider that reckless. Just like a fortune-teller, anyone can speak in generalities that have an air of importance. And just like a fortune-teller, they sometimes can do more harm than good. Fortune Cookie Bloggers fool a lot of people into thinking that they’re true authorities and can cause a followers to go down the wrong path and lose online credibility.
My take on social media terms
Unlike a fortune cookie blogger, I’ll actually attempt to define some of the terms being thrown around the blogosphere.
Your online brand For the majority of people online, an online brand consists of two components: brand qualities and brand promises. Brand qualities are essentially the personality traits you’re trying to convey about yourself to your audience, like your reputation, etc. (whether you’re honest about your true personality is a different story). Your brand promise, on the other hand, is basically what you will deliver to your clients, or your mission statement, or your raison d’être.
Engaging the community I’ve always found it funny, the way some people make this concept sound complicated. For me it’s simple. Engaging the community is essentially making friends, contacts and connections that, in the end, you can benefit from. It’s definitely not about how you can increase your Twitistics, which usually are just mind-candy.
So I implore all the “Social Media Experts” out there that when you post something and it sounds like a fortune cookie, stop. If someone cannot take what you’ve written and actually do something tangible with it today, stop. Doing so does nothing to build your online reputation as a social media expert and would be a waste of everyone’s time.
Do you know of any Fortune Cookie Bloggers? If so, what advice would you them?
Oh, by the way, according to Foodimentary (@foodimentary) fortune cookies don’t come from Asia, they’re an American invention. Just thought I’d share.
Call me old-school, but I find the whole “web ninja” moniker ridiculous. I guess when someone calls himself a ninja, he’s trying to imply that he has mastered a wide array of skills that he uses when he wages war against websites. Wonderful imagery. Honestly - moving.
But I just can’t take people that refer to themselves as ninjas seriously, sorry.
I recently had to wade through a pile of resumes to fill a couple web designer jobs at Concordia University and ran across a handful of applicants who referred to themselves as “web ninjas”. Now I’m fully aware, there are some companies out there that have staff members with titles such as “Web ninja“,etc. That’s fine, I get it. These companies are avant-garde, cutting edge, and hip. Got it. Coo’. But when an individual writes “I’m a CSS ninja” in his cover letter - it makes me pause and wonder, “Can I take this guy seriously?”, then right after, it puts me into, “Let’s-see-how-good-this-ninja-really-is-mode”. Seriously, if you’re trying to apply to a position where someone like me is looking over your portfolio, the last thing you want is to make the employer ultra-hyper-uber picky. In my books, if you’re calling yourself a ninja, you better be perfect buddy. Some of you may be asking where my sense of humor went? Well, after you sift through a few hundred CVs, and just as many terrible portfolios from other “ninjas”, you lose a bit of your cheerfulness. Which leads me to my big three of applying to web designer jobs:
Consider the company you are applying to. Some companies are more relaxed than others. Always research the company you are applying to. Look up their client list and recent portfolio. You’ll get a feel of whether they’re open to black belts or not.
Be ready to back it up. Know that when you use titles like “ninja” and “guru” you are raising the bar to which you will be evaluated against and be ready to demonstrate your prowess.
Don’t overstate your skills. Never, under any circumstances, misrepresent your level of knowledge of something. I’ve interviewed applicants who essentially called themselves God’s gift to CSS who couldn’t execute a simple clear fix. Know, that most employers remember names and will never call you in again if you waste their time.
What do you think of designers who call themselves, “ninjas”?
With all that said, I’m not always right. This guy actually got the job he was trying out for.
In 1999, almost 10 years ago, I began tinkering on the web. I built my very first website. It was all very tentative, with no long-term goals in mind. Not for a moment did I think about whether I wanted my site to be archived forever, but it was.
In July of that year, I also started experimenting with Linux and used newsgroups (remember those?) to get technical support. I got the information I needed but it didn’t occur to me that my questions would still be online almost a decade later.
Luckily for me, I only started being active on the web in the late ninetees when social networks were not mature, and uploading large videos was a pipe-dream. There was no LinkedIn, no Facebook, and definitely no Flickr. Despite this, I still managed to write a few embarrassing posts I’d love to take back. What can I say other than I was young and needed to get things off my chest. I wanted to express myself and own something online. I wrote with reckless abandon, wearing my heart on my sleeve, and never thinking about what the web would or could be. Today, considering I work in the web, I’ve emerged relatively unscathed. There are no pictures of me vomiting, no posts threatening any governments, and no photos of my doing anything illegal. That fact has absolutely nothing to do with any foresight but everything to do with the fact I had no where to easily post things like Twitter.
Today is a completely different story.
Every day new social networks spring up. Along with them a multitude of opportunities to forever incriminate yourself or botch up job opportunities. As I enter a new phase of my life where I’m starting a family, I start to look at the state of the web, and I grow a little uneasy. Every time I join yet another social network, I bring along with me the stories of my co-workers and loved ones. My photos and writings about my friends, their families, and their children will forever be archived online on some box somewhere on the web and things will get hairier for millennials.
Millennials are the first generation to very possibly have their entire life documented online. Photos of their birth, their medical history, their Google searches, their favorite shows, their relationship statuses - everything. Their lives are open books. To make things more complicated, archiving is getting more advanced. The web snapshots are getting more refined. The data is more granular and more can be done with it.
What are the implications?
As my generation was brought up learning how to never talk to strangers on the phone, perhaps the children of today will have to be educated at an early age about the possible dangers of social networks (maybe they do this today - I simply don’t know). How will this affect the social networks of the future? Will the trend towards openness and sharing continue? or will there be a sharp downturn as the general public becomes more web-savvy?
Only time will tell. Until then, I’ll err on the side of safety, and think twice (or maybe three times) before I post photos of the office Christmas party.
What are your thoughts?
Update 1: December 29, 1008
During an exchange with Liz Strauss, she brought up an interesting point that millennials would not miss something, in this case privacy, that they never had. I had to give this some thought, and I have to say I disagree with this line of thinking.
The web is littered with design patterns that imply security and privacy. Lock icons, https protocols, logins and passwords all hint that the information contained within the experience has a private aspect to it. I’m quite certain if one were to ask a Millennial if it were OK to read their Gmail - he or she would object, something to the tune of, “no that’s private”. Facebook has privacy settings in order to hide aspects of one’s profile to certain users - once again, implying privacy exists to a certain extent. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure most millennials don’t truly appreciate how much information Google stores on their searches either.
So, perhaps, when it comes down to it, millennials know, deep down, that their online information is… vulnerable… I just doubt they have any idea of exactly how open, or how archived their information is - and even if they did know, should this be really be the case?
[caption id=”attachment_132” align=”alignright” width=”360” caption=”Not all “Twitistics” are meainingful, most are are simply “mind-candy”“][/caption]
Over the last few weeks, I’ve read tweets from various tweeters proclaiming the size of their follower list, the number of direct messages they have, and percentages of this and that. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, from time to time, I felt a bit of follower envy, however, after some thought and discussion with Jacqueline Ng, I wondered what the big deal was. Do these stats really mean anything?
Like most statistics (though in this case, we’re dealing with population parameters), Twitter statistics (or “Twitistics” as I like to term them), lack a point of reference for me. For instance, what does “65% @replies” actually mean? Is it someone engaging with many members of their community or is it a few lengthy back-and-forths with old school friends? And what does “engaging” actually mean to different tweeters? What was the original purpose of a user’s Twitter feed in the first place? Does the Twitter feed belong to a corporate brand, or a mother at home? What’s needed here is a point-of-reference, otherwise, why should we care?
Though I know first hand about the thrill of seeing my follower figure pass certain milestones, all that is artificial. I know that the number of followers I have is meaningless just like the number of “hits” my website gets. What’s important here are the metrics that I value, as opposed to generic meaningless ones.
For instance, my personal goals on Twitter are to exchange ideas with others in the fields of web design/development, marketing, business and higher education, and to market my skills to potential employers (talk about transparency). Thus the metrics I value are:
the number of followers I actually have interesting conversations with and
the number of followers I have that hold positions of influence at companies I’d like to work for.
And metrics I don’t pay too much attention to are:
So the next time you think about tweeting something like “I need only 1 more follower to crack 2000”, think about:
Does this 1 more follower actually mean anything to you?
How tweeting something like that reflects on you, i.e., will you come across as someone who values a followers opinion? or will you come across as a shallow person trying to simply build their follower list?
This post was not sponsored on behalf of anyone. The opinions are mine (obviously).
For those not keeping score, social media guru Chris Brogan, posted a sponsored post for Kmart on Dad-o-matic. Long story short: they gave him some cash to shop, and he blogged about the experience. Longer story shorter, some people, namely some on Twitter, thought it was… a bad idea, and it hurt his credibility. Chris explained his rationale not too long after. I’ll have to admit - I did not finish reading it - it was quite long and I wanted to get some snowboarding in (sorry Chris!).
While I was enjoying my first run of the season at Mont Bromont,which is running a wonderful special on passes right now, I had some time to think (in between the moments when I realized that the edges of my Tech-Nine were dull and when I wiped out) about “the situation”. Did Chris betray the trust of his audience? Or was he perfectly in the right to do what he did, the way he did it? My final decision: “Doesn’t matter”.
We could debate this until we were blue in the face, but it won’t settle anything. The fact of the matter is that, for some, Chris has less credibility that he used to have, and for others, what he did was just fine. There is no right, there is no wrong. It’s kind of like arguing what is the best color of Crayola Markers (read Croyola’s tips for stain removal here).
For some, trust is based on whether they feel someone is transparent, while for others, whether they are transparent and in line with their moral system. Is either side right? No, at least not in my books. So if you lost trust in Chris, that’s totally your call. If you still think he’s a straight-shooter - by all means, go ahead. Vent or praise, do as you wish.
But regardless of what you think - know this: how you express yourself on the web is being watched and archived (as mentioned by Mitch Joel of Twist Image fame). How you praise or demean Chris is being watched and read - the web is very no-take-backsies these days, and people are making judgements on your character as well, and whether they should trust you.
With that said, I don’t have any gift certificates to give away, I have no agreements with any ski hills or marker manufacturers - I just like to share things I approve of, give my opinion, and make fun of situations that are really kind of silly in “trying economic times” like these, especially around the holidays.
By the way, WordPress 2.7 works like a dream. Like seriously. Wow.
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For those not keeping score, social media guru 
