Lessons Learned

I was recently accepted into a few CSS Galleries, which is really awesome and insightful! Checking over the stats I’ve gained some new insights into how people are visiting the site. I suppose it would be wrong to take the following information and apply it to your site, but regardless, I’ve noticed a few things:

  1. Glorious Hits! The incoming hits are awesome! It gives one a tremendous sense of accomplishment to know that people are actually visiting your site. However, first impressions are everything, and it seems most people get to the homepage and flee the site. That’s not to say that’s the case for everyone, but by the looks of it — that’s the behaviour of the majority.
  2. Ripped, already? Seriously the site has been up for about 9 days now — in galleries for about 1 day — and it has been ripped. Le sigh. On one hand I’m sort of flattered; of all the sites on the Internet, mine was chosen to be copied? On the other hand – hey — I put the time and effort into this site — so duplicating it elsewhere is kind of cheap and not too creative, eh? I don’t mind you learning from my site, but you have to think: if you’re uploading it somewhere — with most of the site still linking back to mine (and the copyright notice still in tact) you’ve got to wonder …
    I’ve attempted to contact the site owner, so I’ll wait for his side of the story before jumping to conclusions. Still … not cool dude, not cool.

You can find the site at: prowebart.net, csstux.com, lightondark.com, screenaliciou.us, mostinspired, dailyslurp, csscontainer. Thanks for the hits :D

18 comments

  1. Travis McCrea said:

    Website owner for 3 years (this site for 2 days), and the first time I have ever been mentioned is in a negitive way.
    Trust me, my site is not “live” yet.. and I really love your design. I will be changing colors and alot of the overall design… as there are a few things that I dislike.
    I hope we can have a good relationship, and work somthing out where you will be ok with my error.
    My people should have contacted you (like I had asked) and that was MY fault… Consider this a public appology, from me and the team behind Muzik Vids we are very sorry and hope that you will keep a working relationship with me and we can work somthing out?

    Thank You,
    Travis McCrea
    Owner/Lead Designer Geeks Paradox NET- Geeksparadox.com MuzikVids.com Debatehub.com e107support.com e107designs.org

  3. Jody said:

    @Travis -
    I might suggest the first action you take to make sure Ben is “ok with your error” is take down the site. You say it’s not live. Well…it is live. Anyone with a ‘live’ connection to the internet can find it at http://www.muzikvids.com/news.php.

    I’m curious to see what aspects of the overall design you plan on changing. In my opinion, what makes Ben’s site is the well-structured XHTML and wonderful CSS, but most importantly the “look” of the design. Take away the colours and the details (like the image treatments, for example…but that’s not all) and you’re left with a simple 2 column fixed-width layout. As the owner/Lead Designer of Geeks Paradox NET, I can only assume you know it is not difficult to achieve this layout any number of ways.

    If I were Ben I would be concerned right now, considering your company offers free CSS templates. The question is, who designed the templates you offer on your site?

  4. Jordan said:

    I agree with Jody. The site is “live” and anyone can go to it by typing it into their browser. As a Lead Designer you for a large company (so it seems) you would probably not be impressed with someone ripping your hard work, even though I’m sure the stuff you’ve already done isn’t yours. You picked the wrong site to rip.

  5. Travis McCrea said:

    I could achieve this layout in a diffrent manner, but I have put some hours into getting THIS template working, so to just strip it is kinda out of the question. As said, I want to form a better connection with the site and hope that my simple modifications to the design will suite his wishes and we can get along togeather well. Especailly since I am giving him credit and he is getting a free link to his site.
    My company offers free themes for the e107 website system, but currently we are only offering ports of other already available styles. If you look its 100% legal.
    As for its liveness I *COULD* pull the site and label it as under maintnence, but then i couldnt have any collaberation on how the site should look and be layed out. I would hope that you understand this. As said, I am willing to work with you ben, lets just have a chat.
    If you have MSN, AOL, or any other chat client please tell me so we can have a better chat.

    Thank You,
    Travis McCrea
    Owner/Lead Designer Geeks Paradox NET- Geeksparadox.com MuzikVids.com Debatehub.com e107support.com e107designs.org

  6. Adam Shiver said:

    Seems Travis has also ripped his icons from our site as well. And I can assure you they are custom designed icons, as I created them from scratch myself.

    If you’d like to see the originals, pop on by http://www.elixirgraphics.com

    Adam Shiver
    elixir graphics

  7. Jody said:

    @Travis -
    I see you’ve taken the site down. Good move.

    It’s organizations like yours that make it difficult for REAL designers like Ben and Adam to get the recognition they deserve, and get paid properly. Some might think having a site ripped off like this is flattering, but really it’s a slap in the face.

    In the future, if your intentions are to make some sort of deal to be able to modify someone else’s design, you should probably get the deal in order before taking the design.

    Were you also going to ask for Adam’s permission to use his icons?

  11. Travis McCrea said:

    Actually heres a copy of it

    Geeks Paradox NET and Muzik Vids is deeply sorry to all who have been upset by our usages of graphics and designs.

    We will be removing the images shortly and making the site design a little more “legal”. I hope that I have responded fast enough to suite everyone and any additional legal problems can be messaged to me at:
    http://www.muzikvids.com/contact.php

    I *IN NO WAY* ever wanted to steal anyone’s property intellectual or otherwise, and wish to express my deepest sincerity when I say I am sorry.

    This site has caused a bigger fiasco in its 1 day of being up then my other site has in 3 years… I am ashamed of myself for not taking a better route. The reason why my site is online is to allow my team to be able to work on the site before we officially launch… All graphics will be custom by then, but I didn’t see any harm in using other people’s things as a guideline.

    Thank you for your time in reading this and hope that we can solve this diplomatically and we do not have to resort to legal things.

    Travis McCrea
    Geeks Paradox NET

  12. Ben said:

    I’m glad we could get this sorted out! Ah. This has been quite the awkward situation, I must admit.

    Thanks all!

  13. Ben said:

    Yeah, just for future reference: you might want to test locally using something such as XAMPP. Beats having to constantly upload stuff … and it would mean you could take down your current site and replace my design with a nice white page until you have your replacement design ready :)

    *cough*

  14. Travis McCrea said:

    Thanks for being understanding ben, you are now on my feed list btw.

    See the problem is, XAMPP does not allow me to work on this with my team, and I need that. I will be converting your theme through the night and tomarrow… I hope you can give me a day or so, as this will still be the basic template, and the time it would take to mod a different theme to get the same design would be another 2 days anyway.

    As said, please contact me if you need anything.
    I am very glad this is being cleared up

  15. Adam Shiver said:

    I see Travis has decided to keep using Ben’s site as his own, only changing the colors a bit. Tisk, tisk, Travis.

  18. theDude said:

    I would like to comment on this since it seems my site, e107designs, has been mentioned. First, Travis is not the owner of e107designs, I am as the previous comment points out. Second, this incident has just now come to my attention and it bothers me that travis has been doing these things. I also want to mention that neither me or my site has anything at all to do with travis’ other sites. Travis is merely an associate admin on my e107designs site and helps out with the project, although he may think of himself as much more.

    I apologize for any inconvenience and hope this all works out for everyone.

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