TOO MUCH FLATTERY
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch points out today how similar the newly re-designed AOL web portal, is to Yahoo!'s primary home page. Specifically,
"AOL has started beta testing a new home page
(the main AOL.com portal)..."
"Nice portal…but it is nearly identical to Yahoo home page, which was redesigned last year...
Internally, I’m hearing AOLers refer to the new portal as “the Yahoo Portal” although its official name is AOL 3.0."
He even has side-by-side screenshots of the two home pages to compare, and he's totally right.
They're twins, other than color and logo differences.
And the copying isn't limited to just the U.S. versions. AOL also rolled out a new portal in India as well. But as both content Sutra and Amit Agarwal point out, it too is eerily similar to Yahoo! India.
We all know that imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery. And one can innovate by building on the works of others. But one is hard-pressed to see the innovation in these two, new AOL designs.
But sometimes, as history has taught us in the technology industry, it can work when it comes to big companies "borrowing" from another, without any serious negative consequences. In some cases, the borrowee company itself was a borrower from someone else.
Maybe it'll work out for the "new" AOL as well.
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