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New AOL.com Beta Rips Off Yahoo! Home Page
aol.com — The new AOL.com "3.0" beta is nearly an exact clone of the current Yahoo! home page. Talk about a rip-off!
CoyoteByte- 2395 diggs
- digg it
- CoyoteByte, on 10/12/2007, -8/+205Good lord... It's like the got out the Xerox machine and made a copy of Yahoo!
- corevette, on 10/12/2007, -37/+3It's almost like bad copying from worse....
- lolx, on 10/12/2007, -10/+42Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/26/aol-one-step-behind-again-new-home-page-identical-to-yahoo/
- kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+95They have different logos and URLs that is it.
- tbeseda, on 10/12/2007, -3/+67omfg.
it's a blatant dupe. are they that desperate?
what can Yahoo! do? legally? - quomen, on 10/12/2007, -52/+5cmon guys, do you really care that much?
Look how many search providers have emulated google's homepage design.
It's that way for a reason, because it works. - dairien, on 10/12/2007, -27/+6It's almost like they are both controlled by viacom!
- pwill, on 10/12/2007, -38/+81Jesus. Even the menus are in the same order.
Autos
Finance
Games
GeoCities
Groups
HotJobs
vs.
Auto
Finance
Games
Help
Jobs - quomen, on 10/12/2007, -56/+3can someone explain why i'm being dugg down?
edit.wowthisissostupid, forget it heh.. - dvdcr, on 10/12/2007, -33/+5cuz u suck
- dbxz, on 10/12/2007, -23/+10whats AOL?
- rstrb8r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+33In a panic, the web designer went to Yahoo! home page, viewed source, copy and pasted it into an HTML doc, and edited it to use AOL branding. Or at least it sure appears that way... lawsuit?
- asurroca, on 10/12/2007, -3/+169@pwill:
uhh, yeah, alphabetical order... why is that surprising? - Kajman, on 10/12/2007, -22/+5@quomen
1 ) Bash AOL.
2 ) ???
3 ) Get dugg. - EelfinnTy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Apparently their search is also "enhanced by Google"
- hollidaydoc1, on 10/12/2007, -17/+38I guess AOL figured that if Yahoo copied Digg's site, Yahoo wouldn't mind if AOL copied their site.
- pwill, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5@asurroca
I always though sorting by popularity would be the best option for something like that.
For example, I'm sure "Music" and "Movies" are used a lot more often than "Autos" - dsuther2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34more evidence of how incredibly worthless and god awful everything that AOL does nowadays is
- MalContented, on 10/12/2007, -18/+7@pwill
"Jesus. Even the menus are in the same order.
Autos
Finance
Games
GeoCities
Groups
HotJobs
vs.
Auto
Finance
Games
Help
Jobs"
Yeah. Alphabetical order. Thieves! - afx1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+97I'm on your site, stealin your layoutz
- counterplex, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15@pwill
The menus are in the same order because both chose to list the menu items in alphabetic order. - ScrabbyDoo, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3what's AOL?
- RobertS44, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7AOL also uses a stylesheet, while yahoo just throws all the content classes on the page.
- eclipse492, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Everybody search for "AOL RIPPED OFF YAHOO" from their site. should send a decent message.
Are there any legal implications of copying something so obviously? - affanjam, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2If they take it down I have a screen shot that can stand the Digg effect...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/affandesign/474430296/ - rossnyc, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1WOWWWW!
- ozziegt, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4I guess nobody remembers in the last redesign, Yahoo blatantly ripped off aol.
AOL's page at the beginning of 2006:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060107121144/http://www.aol.com/
Yahoo's page on the same date:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060107031643/http://www.yahoo.com/
Which one more closely resembles the current page? AOL. Unfortunately the archive's stopped working later, so you can't see when Yahoo updated their page to look exactly like AOL's. - nobody554, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@ozziegt:
Yes, because those two pages look exactly the same... - catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3digg me down dammit
- ozziegt, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1@nobody554 maybe you should have read my whole post. Asshat.
- thenativeraver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+206My question is, why the hell are you surfing AOL?
~Welcome to the internet....- CoyoteByte, on 10/12/2007, -76/+4I don't use AOL software or anything; I just like to keep tabs on AOL and all Internet companies.
- inspecality, on 10/12/2007, -6/+70Frick coyote stop commenting.
- wdr1, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3<aol>me too!</aol>
- Dayyve, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I've had my AOL e-mail since 1994. It's the address I use when I have to sign up for stuff I know is gonna spam the hell out of me in the future - it's a quite efficient lightning rod to keep my work/personal e-mails relatively clean to sift through.
- rhamej, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I use hotmail for that
- caustikBT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Spam boxes is what www.mailinator.com is all about. Learn it. Use it. Love it. Hell, I'm pretty sure I registered my acct on digg using a mailinator addy.
- PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -7/+71Oh no, im not getting tricked into not only looking at AOL's page, but Yahoo's too.
Next digg like this is going to be IE copies Opera. No foolin me into these things!- gigaquack, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8ie7.com actually does copy firefox.com
- kirb59y, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1In Soviet Russia, Yahoo! looks like the new AOL.com.
- Lax32, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36But this is AOL we are talking about.
Yeah, the same people that pretty much could have had a complete monopoly had they played their cards right but blew it.- sylentmode, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11funny.....sony had that opportunity TONS of times......they love to see how quickly they can fail
- Zerocool82, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30Can Yahoo legally sue?
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -32/+5Legally, I can sue you for spelling "legally" with two L's.
Yeah, that's what you thought I said. - Flashman, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4@noseeme: Your username is appropriate, because now you're blocked!
noseeyou ever again.
p.s. lrn2spel
p.p.s. when you google 'legaly' the second result is "Yahoo! Answers - Can i legaly have sex with a 16-17 year old girl?" --> is this you? - kevnaca, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Remember how AOL sued the makers of Gaim becuase of Aim. Gaim was called Gaim before Aim came out and AOL decided to sue them so Gaim changed to Pidgin. If Yahoo doesn't enforce this then will this be a repeat, or can you even trademark or patent a site design. I mean look at it, the layout is identical to Yahoo's homepage.
- goblindegook, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14AOL never sued the Gaim developers, they only requested a name change over the AIM trademark, which they must protect or risk losing. And that's a totally different issue because, as you should know, trademarks != copyright.
- goblindegook, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8And to answer zerocool82's question: Yes, they can, there are enough similarities here for a copyright lawsuit.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Referencing flashman:
I thought diggers were done with patting themselves on the back for blocking people. We're all really glad you went out of your way to do that. - airquotes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Apple didn't win when they sued Microsoft, so I doubt it would be worth it.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -32/+5Legally, I can sue you for spelling "legally" with two L's.
- zizzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+126Comparison screenshot:
http://i12.tinypic.com/2cyocw9.jpg- Hamsterpotpies, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9AOL can go suck it!
- spookyttws, on 10/12/2007, -25/+2Digg me down if you'd like (and yes I agree they look very much the same) but you can only do so much with tables, and because both companies have way too much crap to put on one page, they were bound to overlap at some point.
- clayanderson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@spookyttws:
"This is your head. This is your ass. This is your head up your ass. Any questions?" - twelve17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@spookyttws:
"but you can only do so much with tables, and because both companies have way too much crap to put on one page, they were bound to overlap at some point."
Right, because AOL and Yahoo are the only two websites on the Internet that use tables and have too much crap to put on one page.
- andritchie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Wow.
What a shameless blatant rip-off.- airquotes, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3You think that's bad try Vista
- rebelxtnut, on 10/12/2007, -15/+34 words AOL SUCKS BIG BALLS
- Dested, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5AOL isnt a word... =/
- sylentmode, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6http://webster.com/dictionary/acronym
yes AOL is a word - longbow486, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0always has always will. their software was Ok up untill v6.0. god did their s/w go down the ***** fast and hard
- nick34, on 10/12/2007, -26/+15Carlos Mencia probably designed it.
(....or should i say Carlos "Mencina")- nick34, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Wow, -3 diggs eh. I thought for sure the Mencia haters would come out in full there.
- PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think the dislike of Mencia goes all the way to the point that people don't like to discuss him even in joke fashion. Hell, I think most as well as myself, believed the show would have been off their air after the first season. I guess I shouldn't have denied the stupidity power of the masses to somehow get him fans that watch it (though I can't say I know one person who watches it). "Here, have some blatant offensive comedy that offers very little originality as well as nothing to think about afterwards" ... I mean, if I want that, I will watch Family Guy (and I do too).
- adrenaline33, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Who cares about AOL or Yahoo..?
- nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7yahoo still has the most used webmail around. and despite that their search stays behind, they still have humans aggregating the news feeds.
- haloevo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8oh my goodness. it doesn't get any more similar than that.
- vraicovi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Why does this surprise anyone? Did we already forget that they ripped off Digg for Netscape.com?
- DavisCollins, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2woah. i didnt realize they copied digg like that. that is rediculous.
- betona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That was Jason Calacanis who turned Netscape into a copycat site ... and he's no longer there.
- rjpaez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I wonder what jack ass web designer over at AOL thought it was a good idea to waste their time copying Yahoo!'s layout... then post it up so the world can access it.
- tribalsun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Those web designers were just doing as they were told by some jackass "VP of whatever" to "just make it like Yahoo, theirs looks nice." Web designers for large corporations like AOL have very little to do with determining the final product, they're just hired hands.
- geekitechture, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@ripaez
It must've been Jason Calacanis' idea at some point.
- tribalsun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Those web designers were just doing as they were told by some jackass "VP of whatever" to "just make it like Yahoo, theirs looks nice." Web designers for large corporations like AOL have very little to do with determining the final product, they're just hired hands.
- elig, on 10/12/2007, -4/+35What are you talking about? This is *so* not a rip-off of Yahoo. For example:
* Whereas Yahoo has search links of: Web, Images, Video, Local, Shopping
...the AOL site has links of Web, Images, *News*, and Local.
* Whereas Yahoo has two links right underneath its logo of: "My Yahoo!" and "My Mail"
...the AOL site has two links of "AOL Mail" and "Page Tour".
I could go on, but *anyone* should be able to realize that clearly AOL has created their own original work.
(Personally, I'm amazed that anyone at AOL in Dull-es is clued in enough to what a Silicon Valley company is doing to even have the ability to copy it!)- Jok3r, on 10/12/2007, -53/+2troll go away
- Jotaro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+37@jok3r
Its sarcasm, dude - geekitechture, on 10/12/2007, -29/+1@elig
No one's talking about the links when they say it's a ripoff, they're talking about the overall layout, which is identical to Yahoo's. This is a much closer copy of Yahoo than Netscape was of Digg, just for comparison. That ripoff was bad enough, but this is just shameless. Compare the sites side-by-side (the link was posted in a comment above this one):
http://i12.tinypic.com/2cyocw9.jpg
Sorry people like me w/ Comment Enhancer who now have to see that screen shot twice. - KoZo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Oh Hi there Mr. Pogue
- ndiderrich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10AOL has always been bad, and you're just realizing it now?
- bluechips23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Thank God at least they didn't try to make another Digg clone. That would have been just lame. Well, who am I kidding. AOL has always been just lame.
- Speed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17http://www.netscape.com , owned by AOL. I rest my case.
- bluechips23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wow, after looking up Netscape, I really think AOL people are pretty "smart" and "innovative". Aren't they? ;)
- gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It looks like they just copied the source of Yahoo's page, changed a few colors, and replaced the Yahoo logo with an AOL logo. Hell, even the ads are in the same place!
- blastin311, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you view both source codes (like my lame web designer ass did) you would see that they didn't just copy and paste and replace the logo and colors. They actually took the time to rewrite the code... which is funny because they would have saved a hell of a lot of time and $$$ had they just copied and pasted. Yahoo may be cluttered but they have one of the best navigation models for how much information they offer. Too bad AOL had to rip it.
- danakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but holy carp crap!
- happyyellowbug, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sad -- they ought to be inventing.
- Splitt3rxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6that is just the yahoo page with an AOL logo.
- Cheech151337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Feedback link: http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour/feedback.adp
- m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Hate mail sent.
- bigt8r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1They're taking "We can rebuild it! We have the technology!" to a whole new level... Plagiarism.
- Lockhart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wow, might as well just copy Yahoo's source code and change the text and links. Save some time.
- mhockey14221, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Maybe Yahoo copied AOL? uhh
- BrokenLaptop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7This company is run by people who were against expanding to broadband.
- ideadude, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2At first I wondered if they used the Yahoo! UI library (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/), but then I noticed that Yahoo! doesn't even use that library.
FWIW, I think the design on the tabs and section borders is nicer than Yahoo!'s. But seriously, it's a little too close to the Yahoo! design. Down to the highlights in the buttons and gradation in the left menu. - babygodzilla, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0lol.. i cant believe AOL is still around. people should go to jail for using AOL...
- DrunkenPirate34, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Google does it too: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/11/google-copies-ie7-promo-material-from-yahoo/
- boardo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That forgery has been debated numerous times, but there could be several reasons as to why they had the same page design. The one thing that stood out though is the obvious Yahoo toolbar icon that is blurred out in the Google image. Interesting story though nevertheless.
- Marijuana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"If you can't beat em, join em."
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8AOL damn that reminds me i havent recieved a CD in the mail in over a year
- archlich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13now how will you finish your coffee table!?
- JJsays, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1He's just a kid... hello!
I guess you could put a bullet in his head, would that make you happy? - combatcupcake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Do people actually go to aol.com or yahoo.com? I like to pretend they dont even exist.
- boardo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I really don't see anything wrong with Yahoo, even after all of these years. I couldn't tell you what AOL does right or wrong, I have never used any of their services.
- twelve17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't go to the main yahoo page/portal, but I do use some of their other services, like groups.yahoo.com. It's actually useful. AOL, however, not so much. Something about getting those stupid CD's in the mail convincing me to never do business with them.
- diggnationdevon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Probably a dumb question; Does anyone actually go to AOL's website?
- Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Sniff Sniff I smell a lawsuit if it's like that after beta.
- ajgv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"Internally, I’m hearing AOLers refer to the new portal as “the Yahoo Portal” although its official name is AOL 3.0."
AOL 3.0, eh? i think i've still got a floppy called AOL 3.0 with "200 free hours of internet." - poontangpirate, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4IM ON YOUR WEBSITEZ
STEALIN YOUR DESIGNZ- m3mn0n, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2That was so horrible, it's block-worthy
- compubomb, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I doubt that is what is going on. Probably the same guy who made the yahoo site did the aol.com site, also, it's possible that yahoo is now handling aol.com traffic, or yahoo is leasing out their system to aol.com in which case their templates are identical.
- venom8599, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not likely since Google now powers AOL.com's search functions.
- stevebor1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Obviously you didn't hear that yahoo is in the process of buying AOL..........
- stevebor1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13
- venom8599, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Good plan steve. Now how will we go about getting it accomplished?
- IEatHamburgers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm with this guy. Do you know how hard it is to attach a laser beam to a shark?
- evanb1980, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0This is one of the clearest cases of copyright infringement that I've ever seen. First, it is virtually certain that Yahoo has copyrights on its web pages. They are original works of authorship, and to the extent they contain expressive material they can be copyrighted. This even extends to the creativity evidenced by the specific arrangements seen on their page.
In order to infringe upon a work, there must be substantial similarity. Here there is STRIKING similarity. In sum, AOL is totally screwed.- UCbizerkeley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2wrong. you know nothing about intellectual property and copyrights, AOL is likely well within their rights.
- MadMax3000, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1The AOL site look different on mac.
It looks like web 3.0.
You can see it if you are using a mac only. - Luvwarrior, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I'm with stevebor1...I think AOL is being bought by Yahoo! It hasn't been AOL/Time Warner for a long time. Probably time to sell it off.
- Luvwarrior, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Then again, maybe it's a template from one of those template sites. Maybe Yahoo! and AOL just purchased the same one! heheh
- angusware, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6All Our Layouts are belong to yahoo
- lysdexia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't take Yahoo seriously - in my country a Yahoo is an insult.
But - bottom line - who cares? It's not as if the Yahoo page is some bastion of invention and originality, is it? - Darph.Bobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm sure AOL thought no one would notice. Typical of their business practice, policies and attitude.
They use the Quick Draw McGraw policy; "I'll do the thinnin' 'round here!" - lopla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is NOT a dupe! They are both running Portl 3.6 with the branding free option. GET OVER IT.
- newstart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6In related news AOL launched its Indian version of the site: http://www.aol.in WHICH LOOKS LIKE A RIP OFF OF THE OLDER VERSION OF YAHOO, IF ANYONE REMEMBERS IT!
- jestho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They are clearly using the same CMS. However, they really should have done more than just change the colors and logo.
- vrikis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Honestly... Who uses either?
- john570, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My Mom is on AOL. She knows very little about computers and it works for her.
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