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betashop:

Here at Fab.com we’re all about good design.

Authenticity is part of our soul.

We guarantee that every product we sell is authentic and that we are authorized to sell it.

We offer our own unique graphic designs on website.

Everything is home grown and original.

That’s what good design is all about.

Being true to designers, creators, and customers.

That’s why I take it as a personal offense when I see would-be competitors just blatantly and openly rip us off.

In the last month we’ve seen no less than 7 Fab copycats.

3 of them have gone as far as to copy almost exactly key elements of our website design.

We’ve come across screenshots from these copycats that include our own design elements and even our own Fab employees.

The worst offender is a new company, bamarang, operating out of the UK and Germany from the infamous Rocket Internet - Samwer brothers. Their site is not just a copycat, it’s frankly just stealing our unique Fab design elements.

Fab Design

bamarang rip-off

Fab Design

bamarang rip-off

Let me put bamarang and the other copycats on notice. Ripping someone off is not going to work in this space. Knock-offs are just bad design. Users will see right through it. Such tactics may work in some industries, but not in design.

In design, customers are smart and customers value real authenticity.

Do something original or don’t do anything at all.

thegongshow:

Personal data on the web is growing rapidly. More people are spending a greater percentage of their time social networking (time spent per user on social networking sites has grown over 300% in the last two years). Additionally, there are more people coming online for the first time every day,…

Organization:

Old: Marketing
New: Product (Product Management plus User Experience Design), a Peer to Technology and Marketing

Education:

Old: MBA
New: Computer Science or User Experience Design

Spends Days:

Old: Writing Requirements Documents
New: Product Discovery / Pursuing Minimum Viable Product

Learns About Customer Behavior:

Old: With Focus Groups
New: With User Testing and A/B Testing

Makes Case For Project Funding Based On:

Old: A Business Case
New: Customer and Product Discovery

Reads:

Old: The Wall Street Journal
New: TechCrunch and GigaOM

Deep Knowledge In:

Old: How To Use Excel
New: His Customers

Loves:

Old: To Be The Boss
New: To Apply Technology To Solve Problems

Sits With:

Old: “The Business”
New: His Product Team (Designers and Developers)

When Things Don’t Go Well:

Old: He Blames The Developers
New: He Blames Himself

Strives To Please:

Old: His Stakeholders
New: His Customers (because he’s learned that’s the only way to really please the stakeholders)

Makes Decisions Based On:

Old: Opinions
New: Data

Communicates With Stakeholders:

Old: With PowerPoint
New: With Prototypes

Attitude:

Old: Believes His Ideas Are Great
New: Knows At Least Half of Ideas Won’t Work

Worries About:

Old: His Competitors
New: Taking Care Of His Customers

Secret Weapon:

Old: Killer Features
New: User Experience

Strives To Create:

Old: Profit
New: Value (because it’s the best path to sustained profits)

This last point may not be so obvious to people and it is the subject of an upcoming article.

via @cagan

breakingblog:

Incorrect reports that long-time Penn St. coach Joe Paterno had passed away Saturday night were picked up and re-transmitted by, among others, us at BreakingNews and @breakingnews. We soon learned those reports were wrong, and we owe you both an apology and an explanation.

Our editor noted that CBS Sports — a trusted source — reported Paterno’s death around 9pm ET. The CBS Sports headline and story was based, seemingly, on erroneous reporting by the Penn State student publication ‘Onward State.’ The original CBS Sports obituary didn’t directly attribute the student paper. The Huffington Post followed with a story.

However, during the evening, Onward State’s twitter feed reported it twice, first saying that Penn State football players had received an email ‘informing them of Paterno’s passing.’ A second tweet said ‘our sources’ can confirm that the coach had died at age 85. Those accounts were soon dismissed by the family. We quickly reported the dismissal and later news that the managing editor of ‘Onward State’ had resigned.

We decided to delete the original tweet and Facebook posts (we updated the post on Google+) because those posts were shared hundreds of times, and we didn’t want to perpetuate the rumor. For more on how the CBS report sparked reports across the web, here’s a timeline of what happened, assembled by Poynter.org’s Jeff Sonderman.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a note.

(Post by Tom Brew, @thomasbrew)