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Copy Cat Sites

Is it the highest form of flattery when someone copies you? It depends.  Last year, one of my competitors was copying my blog posts verbatim onto his site and taking credit for them.  While I finally convinced him to stop, I started wondering about this very issue.  What do you do when someone copies what you do?
The Web takes this issue to a much higher level.  Take Facebook.  A number of sites have copied the Facebook premise.  Examples include Company.com, DeHood, and ThisNext.
Of course, Facebook is not alone in the copy department. YouTube also has its admirers.  Take HowCast, Vimeo, and Break.com.
Netflix, the online video supersite is having to compete with Hulu and Blockbuster.
Larger companies have gotten around this issue by earning patents on the specific “magic” that makes their site special.  Then, when a copy-cat appears, they send their attack-lawyers to take them down.
What do you think of copy cat sites?  Hit reply and let me know!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 8:30 am and is filed under Newspaper Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Eric Spellmann is the Owner and President of Spellmann & Associates, a technology company offering Amarillo Website Design, PC repair, and network maintenance. He is a featured speaker at a number of state and national technology conferences and writes a syndicated column in fourteen newspapers. In addition, he produces a weekly television segment for his local ABC affiliate. As a Texas Panhandle native, he earned his MBA from West Texas A&M University and enjoys every minute with his wonderful wife and three kids at their home in Amarillo.