…alas Tallis Shorts didn't make it into the final selection. We’re a bit gutted especially when all the finalists seem to be profit making organisations with either paid membership access or Google Adwords littered around every corner.

I’ve seen site much better than Mindbites and I can get free tutorial videos off YouTube, and OnlyHuman seems to have very little (useful) educational content. I always wanted to know 'How to not cut your finger off’!!

Tallis Shorts is funded, maintained and supported by the school and in my eyes is a true Educational Resource with students and staff creating and sharing media amongst themselves for the purpose of creative learning.

To be fair there are a couple of great finalists and I’m certain one of these two will be the winner. It’ll either be; Ecolect (with it’s SN-esque typography) or TED.

My money’s on TED.

It’s funny — after missing SXSW for the past two years (as a winner and as a finalist) this year I’ve managed to blag my way to SXSW! Of course, I’m not that biitter about not getting to the final — it is after all just a bit of fun. But I will be flying the flag for Tallis Shorts and will be championing the need for good, unique graphic design. Which leads me onto the actual point for this news post.

With an estimated 6 billion websites currently out in the web-o-sphere, how can one site distinguish itself from another?

Unique graphic design is one way. Unique graphic design can define and shape a product. It can help differentiate one product from another. It doesn’t mean simply following a trend or style to emulate your heroes. A quick scoot through the SXSW finalists from all the categories confirms a mass homogenisation of the web. I can barely distinguish the sites I’ve just looked at.

This advice is relevant for all aspects of creativity. Be original and stick with your approach. Being different makes a difference. 

• “Introduced on Thursday, the bill--titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007--would empower the federal police to alter the "blacklist" of sites that are currently prohibited by the Communications and Media Authority.
  
  The list currently includes pornography and "offensive material." However, under the amendment, federal police would be able to add other sites to the list, including content that the AFP Commissioner "has reason to believe...is crime- or terrorism-related content."
  
  The definition of material that may be liable for censorship includes Internet content that "encourages, incites or induces," "facilitate(s)" or "has, or is likely to have, the effect of facilitating" a crime”

This is quite shocking to hear as it’s a small step in the wrong direction. What will be deemed offensive and unacceptable in the future? Freedom of speech and freedom to publish is the very essence of the Web. Will this movement eventually halt file sharing websites? Or, for example, would a site like StickerNation have been blocked as it promoted illegal activities?

Perhaps the most shocking part is that this is in Australia. Coming to a democracy near you real soon.

Read more 

…found another site that borrows heavily from ours. Compare the two pages and you will see the many similarities. There’s a few copy differences though; I’m guessing AJL doesn’t use a Mac as he’s neatly changed that reference to just ‘Computer’. That’s about as good as it gets though, I mean come on — the navigation naming and general layout is a bit too similar. Maybe in his links section he should add a new category called ‘Currently stealing…’

Maybe we should be flattered? Nah, fuck it - email sent. 

I was recently informed of a website using copy from our site to promote theirs. Naturally we were a bit pissed but intruigued how the informant knew our words were being used elsewhere because that’s like matching 2 needles in a haystack. They told me about Copyscape and I have to say, I’m very impressed. What happens is this, you insert your site’s URL into their search and they then search the web finding websites with text that matches yours. In other words finding people too lazy to write their own copy.

We found several sites that have ripped parts of our ‘Things we do’ page — word for word. I contacted all biters involved and whilst one was deeply apologetic explaining they’d hired a copywriter and hadn't realised he’d stolen our text and passed it off for his. The 2nd thief was quite arrogant assuming we’d made a mistake. The final stealer justsimply ignored my emails.

Bunch of dirty thieves — it took me ages to write our website copy so this is why I’ve created a new blog category called Rants, you are reading the 1st of many  ;)

Thanks to GrafixGirl for the heads up.

Edit 10.08.07: Still no word from the two companies who haven't amended their sites. I just ran both these sites through Copyscape to see if they had used anyone elses copy words. Turns out Squared Designs also steals copy from Good (who have just been informed). Yay for Copyscape!!

Edit 10.08.02: Another email back from one of the culprits. They apologised and have agreed to remove the text. So, just one more to go.