- Want a juicy tale involving Robert Scoble, his brother Ben, a franchise fiasco, a bullying corporation, and a disappearing post from Scoble’s own blog? Then you’ve got to read this here and here.
- Speaking of Scoble, he seems to have gone off the deep end because people are not linking to him (which of course has resulted in a flurry of links). I don’t want to break another New Year’s resolution here, but has Scoble slapped on the water skis? Just kidding Robert, but I’ve noticed that you haven’t linked to me in a while…
- Does this “new” WordPress theme look familiar to anyone? Have I just fallen for the latest devious form of linkbait?
- And finally, some good news… after the most topsy-turvy, speculation-filled start of a year for a major web property that I’ve ever witnessed, the Performancing blog is back open for business and helmed by Nick Wilson (and you). Kudos to Nick for saving a great content resource, and something tells me that newly-departed Chris Garrett will be back up and running in no time.
Hey, this is kinda fun. Maybe I should do this every weekend… a Page Six for social media marketing nerds. 🙂
Tip your editor with scandalous blogosphere links here.
Reader Comments (24)
Those guys at http://www.kineda.com/akon/ ripped of Cutline theme http://cutline.tubetorial.com/ w/o giving any credits. What a shame!
Is that Akon theme broken in anyone else’s IE 7 like mine? The right sidebar juts up on top of the head image.
I wouldn’t say right out that it’s ripped off, I’d just say it looks eerily similar to Cutline.
I noticed Akon looked a lot like Cutline as well. I took a look at the CSS and it didn’t look like a smash-and-grab… more a case of influencing.
But yeah, very similar. I would be surprised if Cutline wasn’t the inspiration.
Its reeks of Cutline all over. Terry should have credited Chris Pearson if he really was inspired/influenced by Cutline.
The same thing has been happening with blogger themes too. When you have the feel for it, it strikes you. Some even have the audacity to say that it’s their own theme, when in fact most people know that it’s someone else’s. Shouldn’t there be some kind of action for this sort of thing? Like you know, when that reporter copy and pasted the whole blog verbatim?
I designed Akon from scratch in PS. The entire backend code and CSS is completely different. Larger layout, navigation scheme, etc.
I did not use Cutline as a basis for creating Akon. If anything, I was highly inspired by the popular Hypebeast blog with their bold black letters, white background, and semi-three-column navigation, which I believe is a fairly common practice on the web.
Play the game if you will Terry, but read a couple of basic public relations text books before you comment over here and expect to be taken seriously.
At least it’s wonked in IE7.
If you’re gonna be a purse snatcher, at least be good at it.
Sheesh !
Terry seems to have removed all dissenting opinions from the Kineda website.
Went over to Kineda a few hours ago and saw one comment suggesting that he should credit Pearson .. now it’s not there any more.
I’d say that the theme is without doubt highly “inspired” by cutline.
Furthermore I won’t believe that the coding has been done from scratch. Comparing the CSS shows quite a resemblance – much more than I’ve ever seen in any kind of coding done from scratch.
shame on kineda for doing this .. i really loved his blog and now with akon he is spoiling his reputation..
kineda get down to crediting chris…
Besides cutline, it looks so so similar to openswitch.org’s design
Get over it. Just about everything you see is inspired or ripped off from someone else. If they thought it was nice enough to use for inspiration, don’t be a baby…thank them for the vote of confidence and move on.
Eric, in my experience, people who say things like that have never created anything worth ripping off. Your lack of a URL indicates the same likely applies to you.
Definitely shame on kineda – referencing someone really doesn’t hurt and you can kinda sense they know that they are in the wrong from the deletion of any comments suggesting this over at their blog.
Admitting when you are wrong asap is always the best way forward in the long-run…
1. Why wouldn’t Chris just drop a DMCA notice on anyone suspected of using the purloined CCS file?
2. My guess, as long time contributor to various franchise forums, is that there is less than meets the eye in claims that blogs were disappearing.
a) Often people will retract their claims in the face of a Notice of Libel and Slander.
b) One of the franchise sites, Blue Mau Mau, has has had technical problems before.
Michael Webster — If I were going to send DMCAs out to everyone who ripped me off, I’d have to hire somebody to handle the headache.
Aside from that, I have no problem with Terry Ng creating a theme that looks remarkably similar to Cutline.
That said, the thing that I do have a problem with is the fact that he staunchly denies any influence from Cutline whatsoever.
Little nuances like the horizontal rule at the top of the page make me believe that the similarities between the two themes are more than just pure coincidence.
Granted, the rule in Akon is 20px from the top of the page and a bit lighter than Cutline’s, but these elements are quite similar. Also, the slim picture at the top of the design is nothing if not reminiscent of the Cutline header.
Notice, too, the placement of the date of each post as well as the link to the number of comments. Also, have a look at the placement of the categories—each of these elements is positioned identically to their counterparts in Cutline.
The search field also contains the identical default text, “To search, type and hit enter.”
Stylistically, these two themes share quite a few commonalities, and had I created Cutline with inspiration from Akon, then I certainly would have credited Terry for his influence. My problem here is simply that he doesn’t even give me so much as a hat tip, and then when confronted about it, he flat out denies any link between the two themes.
Despite all this, if I’ve learned anything in the last couple of years, it’s that hoping someone else is going to take the right action is a useless ambition.
So, in the interest of saving energy and looking ahead, I’m going to let this one rest.
It stinks not to get a link out of the deal, too, but Cutline has gotten me thousands of links, so what the hell do I care?
Besides, I didn’t see Kineda on the list for “best designed blog” 🙂
Chris, what did you think of this?
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/01/blog_platforms_.html
What a weekend 🙂
1. It doesn’t take a skilled eye to see the two templates are strikingly similar. The second guy to produce the template whould acknowledge the first. We all know it.
2. Scoble complaining about not getting links? LOL
The reference to “jumping the shark” is perfect.
Please, please, please, please, please continue the scandalous links tradition – I had a field-day with these!! 😉
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