Back when I was a newspaper designer, there was a lot of discussion about “borrowing” someone else’s design idea. See here, here and here.
Apparently the same rules apply in web site design. While reading a recent Gannett “best practices” idea from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on covering high school football, I somehow started thinking about my fantasy football team.
Here’s the Argus Leader page:
And here’s the Yahoo Fantasy Football site:
It’s not a 100 percent ripoff, but I’ll tell you the one thing that bothers me the most. Those little lines under the main headline. It’s one thing to take a concept and make it your own. It’s completely another thing to copy someone’s design details:
What do you think? Did the Argus Leader do anything wrong? The design of most Gannett sites looks the same. I’m sure there are other sites that use the same WordPress theme as me. Is this any different?
If you’re the kind of person who emails a lot of screen grabs (or always wished you were that person), then there’s a pretty cool new program you should check out called Skitch.
Skitch, which is a program you download, allows you to make a screen grab from anything on your desktop, add text or draw on the image, and then easily share your creation online or via email.
Here’s what has caught my eye across the web this week.
Typepad is offering free blogs to journalists who’ve lost their jobs (and those who haven’t). I’m guessing that the journalists who have figured out how to create a successful blog aren’t the ones losing their jobs.
I’m kicking myself for not buying the URL oldmedianewtricks.com before these guys. And I’m enjoying their blog.
It’s that time of year again, when we put our faces on elves and watch them dance. Here’s the latest from Elf Yourself – starring yours truly, my wife and the family cat, Duke:
I checked out thepoint.com a few months ago. And while I thought it was a pretty good concept (individuals combine their influence and make things happen they can’t achieve alone), I didn’t see its full potential until I saw it in action this weekend.
Some pretty influential members of the newspaper design community were trying to raise $2,500 to save the portfolio web site newspagedesigner.com. So they turned to thepoint.com.
I learned about this from @mattmansfield via Twitter. Turns out the group was able to make its goal in less than a day.
I was impressed with the ease involved in donating to the cause at thepoint. And impressed by the ability to embed campaign promotion on other web sites.
Here’s the campaign widget (goal is met, but you can still donate until Dec. 15):
Another item of note: This campaign had a goal of $2,500. If you donated to the campaign, and it didn’t reach its goal, the your donation would not be processed.
It’s not all about raising money. Other campaigns include:
