In covering the flogosphere, one thing becomes clear very fast. A lot of sites and ads look very similar. And, in mentioning the often unimaginable lack of creativity, it’s to come off as not just critical but as though you haven’t done anything similar in the past. If anything, I’m as guilty as any. Years ago, when working at an ad network, one of my first and most fun projects ever involved basically copying another companies business, right down to its banners. This was in the days before Flash ads ruled, so when it came to the banners, it was a matter of simply saving the image and uploading it to the ad server. More often than not, in an attempt to improve on the performance, I’d open up the ad in Macromedia Fireworks and make some tweaks, proud of my churning out an inspired clone that proved to be equally if not more annoying than its parent banner. Naturally, I’d then find the banner running elsewhere but when clicked it didn’t lead to my site but to the competitors. I was probably the age if not older than many of the floggers are today. And, like them, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with what I was doing. Like a drug, I found it exciting and addicting. But, like a drug, it was and is a problem.
Copying is rampant. The reason so many flogs look alike is because it takes all of minutes to copy one you see running, tweak it a little, and make it your own. It’s such a problem, especially for site owners, that some of them clam up when asked to name one of their sites. I was at a conference where one of the larger online advertorial marketers spoke, and during q&a I asked if he would share one of his sites with the audience. I must have been getting soft, because I didn’t anticipate the denial. His reason was simple, that if he showed one of his that was working, if there was someone in the room trying to do the same, they would almost immediately be able to leverage his learnings. The same thing happened at the same show where another marketer, this one who does search, didn’t want to share his site, because he had spent immense amounts of time and money getting to its current state of profitability. And, like the other marketer, while they could both seek some legal actions, chasing down infringers was an almost endlessly losing proposition for them.
In thinking back to my own copying of others works, I’m not sure I would have changed what I did, but I now realize something that I didn’t then. I was chasing a short-term opportunity. If something can be copied without much difficulty, then how good can what you are copying be? We see this play out in various ways all the time, but two classic examples were Google when it first opened up AdWords and when Facebook started its self-service platform. You could make money by logging in to a network, making an ad, and running it. Success at that point didn’t require a lot of knowledge just the knowledge that the platforms were open and worth testing. Ask someone what they were doing, and there is was no way they would tell you, because nothing could stop you from doing the same. The don’t tell policy is less the case with those on Google but still happening with Facebook advertisers where potential future competitors troll to find offers that work and upload similar ads. All that does, though, is illustrate the short-term nature of that activity. It’s short-term because it’s not defensible.
Where your business is susceptible to someone copying it, like we see in certain Facebook advertisers to Garvey’s Hollywood Workout, it generally means you don’t actually own anything. Think of the exact opposite, Google. Before they launched they probably were a little secretive about what they were doing as to not alert others of the opportunity or methodology, but once live, they didn’t say we can’t tell you our URL. That’s because there is some actual substance to the business. The good news, though, is that you don’t have to be a Google to be defensible. Even the advertorial marketer and the search marketer have reason to feel less concerned. The design of the page and the offer / payout combination is only part of his equation for success (and it’s a smaller and smaller one). Where he buys is actually a big barrier to entry. It’s hard to find the relationships, the placements, the creatives, etc. that can scale and do so profitably. With the search marketer, when talking to him, it became clear that the site design was important but it wasn’t what made them different. They didn’t want others to know less for worry of long-term competition and more because it might lead a potential future competitor to try their hand, which would drive up the cost of doing business until they gave up.
Legally, we can’t say copying is fine, because it’s not, but the copying isn’t so much the issue in our opinion. It’s not necessarily taking that step back and realizing what it means, i.e. if there is an opportunity out there and it’s only a few mouse clicks away, don’t be surprised when it goes away. And, as we are seeing these anyone can do it opportunities dry up faster and faster. There’s nothing wrong with entering into such a field, but you should go in either ok with an uncertain duration or looking for a way to create some barriers. And, the barriers don’t have to be big. It could be process, speed, relationships, expertise not just technology. And, originality while good is not expected. Companies big and small don’t start with true originality, but the good ones will become original. Just remember, though, if you’re going to leverage another’s efforts, don’t copy something that is itself illegal. Then you just seem ridiculous.
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