AOL One Step Behind Again: New Home Page Identical To Yahoo

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1. João Ribeiro
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   AOL only looses with this copycat games. We should try to do something new, and better, in everyday that goes by. Do people really believe that others won’t notice no innovation is present?
   Learn from the past, analyse the present, and project the future, that’s what big companies should do, that’s what I, as a student try to do!

   Be authentic, or loose trying.

   João Ribeiro, 23 years old, Computer Science Student

2. Sergio
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   It´s really a print screen from yahoo…

   At least they have change the logo…

3. Ryan Merket
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

   Wow, this is terrible. They copied everything… even down to the tabs.

4. Yakito
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:16 pm

   When I see things like this I just don’t get it… someone actually get paid to do this? What do the guys who ‘design’ this think?… that the world won’t notice… And what about the guy who is suppose to approve the ‘go live’ with this ‘new’ site… someone must get fired after this.

5. Allen Stern
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

   Check out my post (click my name) from the NY Video Meetup yesterday - AOL Video presented and I was completely underwhelmed. The man spoke for 3 minutes and I frankly had no idea what he said. And then the last 2 minutes was a demo of their killer AOL Uncut video which is basically an index of all of the other video sites.

6. Eric Willis
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:25 pm

   Saw this earlier. This should be embarrassing for AOL. This is almost a complete copy.

7. gloom
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:36 pm

   I get the feeling that the new AOL main is not a copy of Yahoo main, but actually a re-brand of Yahoo main.

8. Zoli Erdos
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:52 pm

   YAhOOL portal

9. RandomThoughts
   

   April 26th, 2007 at 6:53 pm

   Hey, if you can’t beat them, copy them.

10. paul m
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:53 pm

    ok, i love bashing aol and google when they rip off yahoo as much as anyone and this definitely displays a lack of ambition on aol’s part. but as the portals evolve a good touchstone might be to ask “how different are the MSOs’ EPGs?” having been a Comcast, TWC, and Cablevision digital subscriber over the last year i can tell you that the answer is “not very” (with Cablevision the most unique of the bunch)… yahoo is obviously building interfaces that work for this functionality; i would expect the rest of the portals to continue to follow their lead, not to mention that someone out there is most definitely comping up a knock-off Yahoo Go as we speak

11. Ted
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    There is a lot to be said here for visual vocabulary. From a marketing point it is a great thing to do. I cannot begin to tell you how many sites that I have been asked to work on where someone says…. “we are trying to be the next ORBITZ”, “can you make it look like Amazon”, “We are trying to be the next Priceline”….. THOSE are the ones with no creativity. But out of convenience they are counting on some things that the human eye does while on a site. They are counting on the human behavior element of the user adapting comfortably to the site based on familiarity.

    C’mon guys, AOL has done WORSE THINGS…..

12. Arpit Jacob
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Wow as a web designer I would say that Homepage is a complete RIpoff.

13. rod
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Wow - zero effort whatsoever. No creativity, no passion. They are certainly working hard at making sure the AOL brand stays dead in the minds of influencers. Say what you will about Calacanis and the Digg clone, but at least it generated some press, lots of feedback and dialog, and interest in the Netscape brand. AOL seems unable internally to create the genesis for a similar effect.

    —-
    http://techfold.com

14. Smokey
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Wow, it says a lot about the creative abilities of the web developers AOL hires. They might as well get Yahoo! to provide the services. Even small web development firms can do a much better job than this.

15. Norm
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:20 pm

    Absolutely disgusting. What is this company doing. They are clearly delusional.

16. David Mackey
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

    They also offered a full-fledged antivirus and AIM Pro - both which are pretty significant products.

17. Anif™
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:23 pm

    WOW!!! Even the “Search” button is the same!

18. d
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

    are they using the yahoo ui as well? that would would be vanilla cake.

19. caroline
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    Wow. Even the concept behind the tour was ripped off:

    http://www.yahoo.com/newyahoo

    and

    http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour/

20. RaJ
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    Oops - This is disgusting. How could a leading company like AOL can do like this. Even small companies doesn’t do this, where no budget for good designers - lol. Its badly going to spoil AOL’s Brand and reputation.

    http://www.suggestusability.com

21. Adrian
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    They may have done a lot of research, exactly like Yahoo, and come up with the same design. Is that copying?

22. Jim B
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

    Yahoo actually ripped aol.com off 9 months ago when it relaunched its homepage. use archive.org to look at yahoo’s old homepage vs the new homepage aol.com launched 9 months ago. Pretty weird, right? I was just as surprised 9 months ago.

23. Evan
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:50 pm

    Everybody is overlooking the obvious - that the two companies are merging and this is step 1 in the corporate blending.

24. George P.
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 9:05 pm

    wow, there is no way to defend this.. pathetic

25. Zaid
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    Mike, even more surprising is that they’ve launched this style across the board. Recently launched AOL India looks the same: http://www.aol.in/

26. Jeremy
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 9:19 pm

    When I worked at Yahoo (while they came up with the new home page) they did in fact do a lot of testing - and yes, there was public recognition of the fact. It was a very iterative process, bloggers would catch views of the new design, make comments, Yahoo would track all sorts of metrics, etc.

    In the end, they came up with the current design. How did AOL do it? It’s so close to Yahoo’s, and I haven’t read ANYTHING about them testing a new page publicly, they must have copied.

    End of story. Unless somebody can point out a blog post where somebody saw a preview of AOL’s “new design in progress” and a version or more of it in transition?

27. Gerard Sorme
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    in2TV is the ONLY thing worthwhile at AOL. Watching all those classic TV shows free at AOL is great, but this portal is a lame ripoff of Yahoo! I am with those who wonder about the people who “design” this - and get paid for it!!

28. GodSaveU
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 9:58 pm

    For those who have ’short term memory’ … the story began last year when Yahoo copied AOL portal …

    Snapshot from a comment thread on Michael A’s blog post on Yahoo’s portal redesign last year ….

    # Mahesh Babu

    July 17th, 2006 at 7:49 pm

    Looks somewhat like http://www.aol.com portal page???.
    # Michael

    July 17th, 2006 at 10:44 pm

    Yeah once that somebody makes a change, everyone flocks afterwards. Why does all the new designs look very similar(at least to me)?

    http://www.businessweek.com
    aol - mentioned above by Mahesh

29. fo.unta.in
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

    Is it not possible for Yahoo to sue them?

30. Brian
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    It HAS to be intentional and some sort of partnership. Even the little “ad feedback” link on the right side is identical.

31. Jarett
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Mmmm, it’s fun to watch companies you hate flail around.

32. Wes
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Surely this doesn’t give a good impression of AOL.

33. Loren Nason
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Its a wonder all tech people hate AOL

    they suck
    and they suck

    oh and they can’t even do anything original

34. Bad Example
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

    Hi, it’s me again.

    I’ll tell you why AOL need to copy Yahoo. Because they need to study genius user interface, increase revenue, ratings, and lower corporate taxes.

    You see….
    When stupid & idiot steve case brought AOL TIMEWARNER shares and enforcing to increase AOL price $14 to $21. The company crashed, stock crashed, and losing loyal and best customers super fast….

    Timewarner executives & chairman got piss off at Steve case. They hated his guts. Real reason… Maybe he’s idiot business man after losing billion dollar revenues in three-four months. Forecast sales of AOL TIMEWARNER in 20-50… Timewarner can foresee future crash or bankruptcy. Now, Timewarner wanted to sell AOL unit to anyone. Google brought tiny AOL shares.

    AOL only have little or no money left over. What to do without idiot steve case??

    AOL have no leadership…
    They need to copy Yahoo to bring back revenue!

    I’ll tell you why AOL stock worthless.

    1# There are less blacks, latinos got hired.
    2# AOL trash talks on customers.
    For example customer guy named Ferrari… He calmed
    AOL can’t speak English. They all have college degree.
    3# Stealing privacy & promote spam
    putting massive telemarketing calls on Middle class
    4# Where’s idiot steve case?
    5# AOL could’ve brought youtube and brought lousy fish video company.
    6# AOL only hire college degree.
    7# AOL have 89% work place bullies.
    8# AOL employees got nasy have sexual relations with kiddy rooms.
    9# People see AOL as toliet paper company. You can google AOL. You will see tons of AOL & Steve case SUX website.
    10# AOL cheat money too!!!

    Finally, good news… AOL just dig an oil hole and steal Yahoo oil pipleline.
    It took years and years to bring back AOL again.

35. bigbuda
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

    I always thought AOL sucked, but this.. wow.. they really XXXX up big time.

36. Jeremy Zawodny
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:05 pm

    That. Is. Awesome.

37. Ben
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:08 pm

    Actually Allen, you are wrong. AOL Uncut is not an index of all video sites. That is what Google Video is trying to do, as well as AOL Video. They are going towards the model of being a hub for all video across the web; whereas YouTube and UnCut Video are User Generated Content (UGC). It is true however UGC does filter amongst the user generated sites. Albeit they, unlike Google Video and AOL Video, are for the users to express themselves. If you ever looked at the content on AOL Video, not conducted a search, but navigated using the left rail links (i.e. “Music”>>”AOL Music”>>”AOL Music Sessions”>>”Akon”) you would notice that it is mostly licensed content.

38. question
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:11 pm

    If you guys worked Yahoo. Can you sue AOL for copyright infragement and own $1 billion rights to AOL?

    What will happen if yahoo brought AOL?

39. steve
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:38 pm

    I think AOL is prepping its users for the Yahoo/AOL buy-out coming up.

40. WhoCopiedWho
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 11:41 pm

    I do agree with some of the folks that 9 months back when I saw the new design of Y! it was very similar to the then newly done AOL. This rev of AOL is only slightly different than their last rev. Which tells me that they just had a natural evolution of their portal and it was not a copy. Have to give credit where its due.

41. Stefan Hess
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:10 am

    Not a very smart move….

42. BSRaju
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:17 am

    I’ts a copycat age …i’ts just ripoff of yahoo

43. Top Grubs
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:36 am

    Sometime I just wonder, who came first!
    The internet or AOL?
    Then again, I can always google it to find out

44. Lawrence
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:40 am

    Sure you can say AOL ‘copied’ Yahoo’s homepage layout format…but to some extent, they are presenting the same and doing the same things, etc etc as Yahoo …so expect to see strikingly similarities

45. Jack
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:40 am

    Is this a spoof story?

46. MiGs
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:03 am

    Its a marketing strategy.

    As posted on Frank Gruber’s site:

    Its a nice way to create a BUZZ..

    I mean.. when people hear or reads that the new AOL portal is identical to yahoo’s hompage, it is likely possible that they will visit the new AOL portal.

    And i guess the strategy is working.

    =p

47. hh
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:50 am

    this is incredible, and sad.

    agree w/ #4 Yakito — hard to believe a team of people actually got paid to design (read: “steal”), code, test, and launch this… and at no point did anyone say, “hey, this is exactly like the yahoo home page. should we do something else??”

    re. #17 Anif — at least they have since changed the search buttons. a sign that perhaps they read TC?

48. Flo
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:58 am

    When someone asked me to create a website that should look exactly like an example, he gave to me (another existing website), I told him, I wouldn’t do that, because it’s not the way I want to run my business (copying other’s work).

    Shame on AOL!!

49. Lizi
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 2:16 am

    Where is the innovation???

    On the other hand “small company” called Microsoft are doing a lot of money from copying other companies idies

50. Ace
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 2:49 am

    They ought to get spanked, this is just too obvious…

51. milo317
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 3:41 am

    Designers are Copycats ????

52. Alberto B
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 4:25 am

    I don´t think they will release this design. Maybe they are using it to bechmark it against other designs in focus groups.
    As an ex-yahoo! designer involved in the previous redesign I´ll fell proud if it happen, anyway.
    Maybe one day all sites will look the same

53. Nicole
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 5:02 am

    Did anyone see the aol.com portal before Yahoo changed it a year ago? No. Because if you did then you wouldn’t say that AOL copied Yahoo, but the other way around. The AOL Welcome screen is known for the scrolling tab window, funny how Yahoo got one when they switched things up? AOL.com was released Summer ‘05, Yahoo changed last year…Yahoo was is the copying game first it seems

54. Thad
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 5:06 am

    This just shows the importance of being first to market. Aol may have designed first, tested longer, and been more radical in departure for them, but if Y! beats them out the door (even if it is a copy of AOL) Yahoo will get the credit. As product managers know, that sucks but it’s life in the big city. What is really inexcusable is that once Yahoo launched, even if they STOLE the design from a laptop of an AoL employee, AOL didn’t accept defeat in getting to market first and then do more to differentiate. First to design, first to test, first to show to a few bloggers, is not the point. First to market is, if you want to build a brand on the basis of innovation. So maybe AOL’s designers are the best, but AOL product managers and execs should be fired!

55. Alberto B
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 5:34 am

    Yahoo! didn’t copied that design from AOL.

56. Martin Ringlein
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 5:47 am

    Maybe AOL is following the recent design trend of web 2.0 start-ups … design your site like the company you want to buy you.

57. Dossy Shiobara
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 6:02 am

    Is the irony lost on everyone?

    People complained that “the AOL.com portal’s design would be so much better if it were more like Yahoo’s” and now that they’ve done it, people aren’t saying “well done, AOL, your portal design doesn’t suck as bad as it used to” … instead they’re saying “boy, why does your design look so much like Yahoo’s?”

    I think the new design is a far cry better than it was … and yes, it looks remarkably Yahoo-like. Remember: it can only get better from here.

58. pallet jack
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 6:51 am

    Here is the deal - we are not average users - we notice things like this.

    - My dad or anyone older than me that doesnt spend more than 2 hours a day on a PC - wouldn’t have noticed.

    - I suggest they did research; found what Yahoo Found… then instead of designing better than yahoo! - they just copied it.

    - I feel sorry for the AOl designers, they probably had something new and exciting then “the man” said -

    ” Lets just go with something like… uh … Yahoo…..”

59. Ryan
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    I have to come to the defense of designers here. This design decision was most likely made by a product or marketing manager under the guidance of a VP or CEO. Ninety percent of designers I know would be embarassed to put out a clone. We constantly want to push the limits of design, which, admittedly, can sometimes lead to poor usability. Nothing’s more uninteresting than rehashing someone else’s work.

    With AOL being in the position they’re in, converting to the new business model, a lot of the upper management folk are probably very afraid of making a bad decision. I can imagine when the redesign proposal started floating around, management had a “look like Yahoo” drumbeat going. Why? Because if you redesign to look like someone who is successful and your site fails, you can say, “hey, it worked for Yahoo, so it clearly wasn’t a bad decision.” Scapegoat Avoidance 101.

60. MnkyTalk
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:08 am

    Who the hell uses AOL anyways?!

61. DigiDo
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:10 am

    AOL’s simple and effective product “dashboard” concept has stood the test of time. Copied by both MSN and more recently Yahoo. The rest is much of a muchness.

62. RaJ
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am

    I found another Big brand is doing the same. Hindustan Times is the leading news paper in India & their home page is similar to New York times home page. (As we all know that New York time is designed by Razor Fish, its an award winning website)

    Look at this URL:

    http://www.suggestusability.co.....times.html

63. JZ
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    Is it at all possible that there is a partnership in place here and it literally is a re-skin of Yahoo’s portal?

64. Rishi
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:42 am

    ……….even down to advertisers. Not only is the Scottrade advertisement identical it’s placed on the same spot on the page!

65. Sam
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:52 am

    Ryan is absolutely right. There is some real talented UI and designers at AOL, but their work gets hammered down by product managers and executives who are too afraid to do anything new. Last year there was some great innovative work and prototypes produced for the new AOL.com that was put into testing and tested very positively. The new CEO and his right hand man, Mr Grant came in and shit on everything. The executive drumbeat was “Make it look like Yahoo”.
    AOL will never be able to innovate and become a industry front runner with the type of leadership that runs the company. It will continue to follow and copy everyone else.

66. Jason
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    What is this “AOL”?

67. Kris
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    Everyone is doing it, why not AOL? Will it work? Depends on whos using AOL now days.

68. David Dalka
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 9:30 am

    These comments aren’t about AOL specifically - they apply almost everywhere…

    Too much benchmarking

    Too much hiring competitor employees because of “experience”

    Not enough hiring smart, innovative people creating new and different solutions without limiting beliefs of what is possible.

69. Spike
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    If AOL doesn’t start taking risks, it will die a slow, painful, large, corporate death.

70. Spencer
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 10:32 am

    Nicole’s comment is correct. AOL launched a brand new design in 2005 and quite a bit later Yahoo came out with a homepage that looked copied from AOL’s. Didn’t see many complaints back then.

71. hans blix
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am

    for the love of God and all that is mighty. what in God’s name is AOL doing? more so, the designers on this project… where is thy shame my user experience/design brothers?

    Please don’t answer.

72. Reeks of Execu-Design!!!
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:08 am

    This screams “DESIGN BY EXECUTIVES!”

    Kudos to the poor designers how had to put up with it…

73. Anon
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:30 am

    What-evah. Microsoft hasn’t come up with an original product since the days of DOS, Basic and Office. Ever since, they have been copying Apple, Netscape, AOL (where do you think they got the IM idea from?), Google and Sony just to name a few.

74. monksun
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am

    Well, to let you all in on the secret: it WAS execu-design, from the very top. You think any designer would do this of their own free will? The designers and UI folks here at AOL are some of the most intelligent, creative and passionate people I know. They had no choice in this matter.

    I assume there is a reason for the “copy Yahoo” directive, but I am in the dark.

75. Margo
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    According to the article, “Frank Gruber introduced it on his personal blog earlier today, although he is not the product manager for the product.” Remember that as you read the article and his blog. Don’t shoot the messenger.

76. Jim
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am

    I can smell exec suits all over this.

77. rh
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:58 am

    kinda like ask.com copying google.

78. Sagastin
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 11:58 am

    To everyone that is quick to write something about AOL copying Yahoo, don’t forget about the big picture here. Aside from how this page looks, there’s much more at play than meets the eye. I’m startled at how many people are zeroing in on design and UI decisions and not what’s in the minds of the real decision makers outside of design team. That’s the meat of this story. A challenge for someone that works on the inside, what’s really going on here?

79. Margo
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Apparently there is more to the story, according to Sagastin, and things we will never know regarding the design and the design team. Maybe yahoo and aol are working together on this. Do you know that they are not? No, you don’t.

80. Evelyn
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Apparently AOL Canada has already launched the new website ahead of AOL.com.

    http://www.aol.ca

81. Lars
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:43 pm

    FIRE RON GRANT NOW!

82. David Liwenstein
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    The new yahoo-like version was mandated by Ron Grant the new head of AOL. He told them to just rip it off and move on to the next project. At least he has the balls to make an executive decision. And his decision isn’t all that bad since the Yahoo home page works well. If you can’t compete, then copy and focus your energies elsewhere, where you can compete.

83. Srikanth Bhakthan
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Michael,

    Compare the homepage of MSN, myspace with yahoo & AOL, i see almost the same kind of layout, is it due to the fact users are pretty much used to this kind of layout?!

84. Anemic Aileron
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    Then: AOL=Another Opportunity Lost
    Now: AOL=Anti-Original Layouts

85. Embarassed AOLer
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    Please don’t blame the AOL designers. They’re really good people who are getting really bad direction. The people who blamed AOL executives in general and Ron Grant in particular were right - this was a decision forced upon the people doing the work at AOL, and we’re incredibly embarrassed by it.

86. Shakhyamuni
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    I too must speak in defense of the designers of the AOL “Yahoo” portal. Ryan and Sam have it perfectly correct; it was a newly assigned executive who, in the late stages of a rather innovative and fresh portal design, entered the picture and decreed that it must “look like Yahoo.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of design, R&D, testing and prototyping money was pissed away with a single imperious sweep of the hand.

    Mortifying. Utterly mortifying.

87. =bg=
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    If I was a hard-working designer @ AOL..I’d just be embarrassed beyond belief. The front page is your “face” to your customers…and your company just copied someone else’s work.

    Yahoo!, on the other hand, should feel flattered. Are they getting a license fee?

88. =bg=
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    PS- you know, it’s REAL easy to make YOUR very own AOL page.
    Just go to http://www.yahoo.com, and right click to ‘view source.’

    Just replace the logo top left—you’re good to go.

89. Minister
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 8:07 pm

    All the commenters who smelled Execudesign are perceptive. All the finger pointing morons who yell “oh my god what crapola designers, they copy and paste ha ha” have the intellect of 14 year olds or your below average Digg user. Come on now. If you’ve worked in Design at larger companies, you must know that the design challenge isn’t thinking of innovative ideas or good UI. The real design challenge is persuasion - percolating up the value of innovation, user experience and capital D designing the decision making processes of the organization. If anything, this shows the AOL design team failed at this larger challenge, but so do most design teams at Yahoo, Google and MSN.

90. Ryan
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 3:48 am

    I’ve sat and processed this a bit and I believe there is more to this story, as I have a bit of inside information on something related. I won’t say any more than that, but I believe there was a very specific purpose behind AOL’s choice of execu-design.

91. ExplosiveBolts
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am

    Ryan is correct in saying that there was a very specific purpose behind the execu-design. Unfortunately, it’s wholly without mystery or intrigue. The direction from the AOL President was clear, and was obviously met with protestations from the design and product teams: don’t suggest Yahoo in the design — MAKE IT LOOK JUST LIKE YAHOO. It’s a UI that people are comfortable with, and copying it in the short-term mitigates risk despite the message it sends to those in the industry. The mantra is “execute on the basics, and earn the right to innovate”. It goes without saying that it’s a risky if not dubious strategy, and that it was devastating to the designers and many of the product managers who had a design in hand that was created from the ground up to “take on Yahoo”, not copy them.

    While there’s something to be said for a strategy of “executing on the basics”, particularly when we’re talking about a company as adrift as AOL, it can’t be done successfully without more sensitivity to the impacts it will have both internally and in the minds of consumers. By mandating the *design*, Ron Grant (probably unknowingly) devastated the morale of a team that is of critical tactical importance to the company. While this team is at the epicenter, the shockwaves inherent in the action, and in the “we’re not in the innovation business” credo, began engulfing the AOL campus last week.

    It also may be a miscalculation on Grant’s part that audiences “won’t care” that AOL goes out of its way to deliberately and unapologetically mimic its closest competitor. If GM came out with a car that looked exactly like a Toyota Prius, wouldn’t they be perceived *by consumers* as uninspired frauds, peddling counterfeits?

    Long term consequences aside, this episode is an expression of astonishing timidity and loss of ambition. Indeed, it will be a long, slow, bleed into cultural and market obscurity. These are just the insignificant signs of AOL in its twilight, nothing more.

92. Jackson
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    David, you sound like a corporate stooge. You’re actually defending the decision to steal intellectual property and creative work? So, forgeries are OK too? No one will notice, right? That’s not having balls. Having balls is creating a new, innovative product that will inspire and lead.

    Focus your energies on competing? Competing means building the better product. AOL hasn’t done that. They built a 10-month old competitor’s product, which, in the eyes of consumers and advertisers isn’t competitive, it’s a cop-out and an embarassment that will take years to live down.

93. ID1
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 11:05 am

    AOL “leadership” continues to demoralize its already demoralized creative staff. As if not having creative leadership wasn’t enough, they continue to focus all of their energies on hackneyed technical products with half-hearted user experiences and visual design. Execu-butchery at it’s worst.

94. MrMike
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am

    What happened to creativity?

95. David Ward
    

    April 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    I think other readers have said it and I agree, we are conditioned to read web pages in a certain way and the big boys are all doing what they can to capitalize on this. I rarely visit any of these sites as I get my news via rss for the most part and use the search bar in Firefox to conduct pretty much any search I need to make so no need to visit Yahoo, AOL, MSN or the others. AOL is dying a slow death…in my opinion.

96. Vasu Chikkatur Murthy
    

    April 29th, 2007 at 7:30 am

    Hey
    AOL behind Yahoo and copying? No wonder. Both are managed by Indian Software Engineers. As a country, we are specialists in copying and copyright is a birthright. We copy from Engish to Hindi movie to Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and so many other language movies time and again.

    So What’s big deal in AOL copying Yahoo………….

    Afterall, its Indian expertise in different formats

97. Libor
    

    April 30th, 2007 at 5:53 am

    I like AOLs design more, its clearer, simpler & somewhat and easier readable.

    E.g. the tabs “News / Finance / Entertainment / Video” cover much more diverse interest, than Yahoos tabs “News / World / Local / Video”.

    Management decisions are always ugly and sometimes only sexy, so the AOL developers have still done a good job.

98. Poshie
    

    April 30th, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    So we will have some kind of ISO standard for pages ?

99. URMissingTheObvious
    

    April 30th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    It is funny how 98% of the people here are bashing AOL for copying Yahoo!. There have been at least 2 other posts that point this out but since it seems that when someone new posts they haven’t read the entire thread.

    9 months ago aol.com was launched as a portal. The design was nothing like Yahoos!. A few months later Yahoo! launches their new portal. The design is very similar (some would say that they copied the design) to the aol.com design. Then Yahoo! launches are revised version of their portal (rev 2). When aol.com launches the rev 2 of their portal everyone screams AOL COPIED YAHOO!.

    As a previous poster it is just a natural progression of the website that aol.com launched first.

    The second point is that most of you obviously have no training in user interfaces. There is a reason that most sites use a top nav for relevant links, tabs for multiples instances of similar data etc. It is what we are users are conditioned to use. If the top nav was on the bottom (below the fold) and instead of tabs it was just a bunch of drop-downs, the user experience would suck. Look up Jakob Nielsen on the web for more information on consistent user design.

    AOL bashing for bashings sake is just juvenile. And really, how many of you use the Yahoo! portal?

100. InnovationNotImitation
     

     April 30th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

     So, you condone stealing then? Besides, the elements Yahoo “borrowed” from AOL last round was minimal at best. This is pixel for pixel duplication! Your defensive posture reaks of being on “the team.” If 98% of the people are bashing, something’s wrong with the picture, no?

     You call AOL ripping a 10-month old portal progression? I hope you aren’t in any form of business that has a bottom line. That’s counter-competetive and anti-creative. And in the eyes of advertisers and consumers, a failure to push the medium forward. Essentially the polar opposite of progression.

     Some of us posting here are likely to be creatives responding in protest, so your UE argument is without base. I personally have over a decade in UI and just because there are best practices doesn’t mean there isn’t room for innovation. If we all copied each other, there would be NO progression, ever.

     Nielsen is a idiot. He thinks everything should look like Craigslist. He’s knocked progressive technologies that have become the standard; Flash, AJAX, etc.

     People aren’t bashing AOL here. They’re bashing a poor execu-decision, one that will cost them in morale, reputation and perhaps even financially.

101. sandiman
     

     April 30th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

     The surprising thing about this article is that the author seems to be agreeing that something within the AOL product demos he says he saw was impressive. Then he observes that AOL needs a category killer to give it street cred. Sounds like, AOL at least, are hoping they have a category killer. Now if that turned out to be the case, that they actually had something genuinely strong & distinctive at the products level that helped revive their street cred, the decision to play it copycat safe on the portal design would become a more understandable extension of ‘executing on the basics’.

102. Pissedoffaoler
     

     May 1st, 2007 at 2:47 pm

     Make no mistake, this is ALL Ron Grant’s doing. He directed the portal team to copy Yahoo. Micromanagement down to the pixel. This is the first of many products that will be clones of their competitors. Check out AOL’s India portal search page.

     http://search.aol.in/msrp-in/w.....ue&cr=

     Look like any other search results page you know? Word is this will be rolled out to U.S. search as well soon.

     At least David Gang - previously at AOL, recently canned from WebMD - would listen to people who wrked for him, even if he could be dictatorial at times. Ron doesn’t.

     AOLers are pissed. Who wants to work for a company where the COO is this far in the weeds?

     There are inovative people in the trenches at AOL. Check out the blogs of John Panzer, Kevin Lawver, Rocky Agrawal and Frank Gruber for a few.

     Instead of innovating, management continues to piss away money on shit like OpenRide and building yet another new client no one will use.

103. Eric Paz
     

     May 1st, 2007 at 4:10 pm

     With both companies doing failry lousy these days, ia m not surprised. AOL had been dog for many years now. They lost the browser battle after buying Netscape, everything they touch is turning into poo.

     AOL Sucks!!!

104. Brian
     

     May 3rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm

     Wow - total copy of Yahoo…

     What’s all this garbage of Yahoo buying AOL. AOL is a waste of money. Yahoo is cash flow positive and doesn’t need AOL. Not to mention that Google owns 5% of AOL… so how would that work?! Maybe Google wants to buy both? HAHA! Get real.

105. JC
     

     May 10th, 2007 at 3:37 am

     As a former AOL employee and responsible for the client home page for 5 years, I just can say that I’m horrified. AOL has such a strenght in building HP…