NotchUp Vs. GrandCentral: Design By, Uh, Someone Else’s Design?
Written by Russ on January 30, 2008 – 12:08 amI don’t like NotchUp’s Terms of Service–I think I’ve made that clear. I don’t think I’m malicious about this, but I do think it is important that people be made aware of what they’re getting into.
Now, however, I’m beginning to truly dislike NotchUp, in general.
Since writing my post “NotchUp Privacy Down“, I’ve been Googling through the web to find out what people are thinking out in the rest of the world.
In my cyber-adventures, as it were, I’ve seen a lot of mentions about how NotchUp and GrandCentral seem to share the same graphical design.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
GrandCentral:
NotchUp:
I checked out GrandCentral.com’s History section, and they started their company in 2005. I’d say that gives them the benefit of the doubt. Granted, they may have purchased the site from a template company and NotchUp may have done the same, but it seems unlikely.
I’m sure this is beyond my capabilities to prove anything, but I’ll let the screen shots do the talking. I can tell you that when I did a comparison of the sites on 2 different layers in Photoshop, they were same width from the left and right borders–which very much appear to be the exact same drop shadow border. The backgrounds in their content areas appear to be pretty similar as well.
Sure, site rip-offs happen all the time. Hey, we couldn’t stop Vanilla Ice from working Queen’s “Under Pressure” into “Ice Ice Baby”, we’re certainly not going to stop people from
Ponder away.
To me, it just tells more of the story that is NotchUp. The level of trust that I have for them is far less than it was, well, when I received the invitation from a trusted friend.
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Sadly, it seems most people are more interested in the “How can I make money” aspect instead of the “Totally free isn’t just about cash” perspective that I seem to take. Christian Crumlish was cool enough to mention a posting that I sent out to the Information Architecture Institute’s mailing list–to the point that he even apologized to folks that he’d sent invites to.
People are starting to notice, and I think that’s a good thing. Hey, as long as I’m spending a moment talking about things, it was pretty cool that the NotchUp question on LinkedIn actually had a link to the posting I wrote–even before I had a chance to point it out.
I’m hopeful that people will slow down, take a deep breath and make wise decisions about their personal information.
I’ll leave you with a final thought:
How would you feel if LinkedIn suddenly changed their Terms of Service and/or Privacy Policy to match that of NotchUp?
Posted in Rant |
January 30th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I can tell you that GrandCentral did not buy a templated site design, that is because I designed GrandCentral.
I am quite upset that Notchup went and not just stole my design but bastardized it with their own message.
Anybody who practices blatant stealing should not be trusted with anything. I can see that many have pointed to their TOS as of late.
I would not have had an issue with Notchup if they had informed me or any of my team from GrandCentral, now part of Google about what they were planning to do, and gotten permission to do so. But the likelihood of us granting such a permission would have been highly unlikely. In anycase I would love to give a piece of my mind to Notchup’s CEO Jim Ambras.
Thanks for pointing out and listening,
Chu
January 31st, 2008 at 10:10 am
If they did not get it legally “someone” should talk with them. So how does one prevent this sort of “borrowing.” Does copyrighting help or other legal means?
Gary
February 5th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
[…] complaining about Notchup’s terms and conditions policy. Have a look at one such post by Russ here and […]
February 26th, 2008 at 11:45 am
They copied the layout, not the total design. Other wise they simply copied the style. It’s not fine art, so get over it.