Blog Themes… can you claim one?
By alex miller • Oct 15th, 2007 • Category: Blogging, FeaturesCreating and maintaining an online identity.
Blog themes are usually free and as such we can’t possibly expect others not to use the same ones. You have to pay for that!
But what if that person is someone you know? What if someone who has a fairly strong virtual identity and is in the same professional field, and is someone who visits your blog?
What if someone that you knew changed their blog theme to something almost identical to yours?
Would you be surprised when you visited their space? Would you be annoyed or flattered?
What if you had carried that theme through to other spaces?
Would you change your theme?
What do you think?
How do you feel about your online identity?
alex miller is currently innovating in education for North Coast Institute, TAFE NSW. For more information, check the 'about' page.
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Alex
I really like it. I want one!
Very Mac, Very Cool.
At first I was thinking this is a bit like turning up to a party in the same frock.. but it goes deeper than that.
Thanks for this post Alex. What it makes me think about… is how we consider, value and care for our network’s online identities.
Is it all ripe for the picking? Or do we have a responsibility to honour and respect the spaces and outputs of our trusted colleagues?
So someone stole your code to make their theme the same as yours? Or was it n accidental using of the same free theme? The first is just down right dirty. Either way, look at it as an opportunity to do a little redesign. I would normally redesign my business site every 2 years – that’s the theory anyway!
Your targeting me and that’s ok.
Diddums.- http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2039/1584242240_7f07259b3e.jpg?v=0
I have thirty four (34) themes at last count in my plugins folder. I collect themes, hack them, dispose of them, manipulate them, hand them out for others to use etc.
Each month I change my theme.
I’d be flattered if you had time to change yours according to when I changed mine….hey…thats an idea….perhaps we could have a change them by day…….or lets-all create-a theme-that-looks-the-same-day.
Truth of the matter is that I went to the base of your page and went oh…I wonder who N. design are ?
One click I reach their homepage > wordpress themes > i-theme blog > 3 column > Licence
License
By downloading and using this theme, you agree to the following terms:
* You may NOT resell this theme
* A link back to N.Design Studio must be retained in the footer (either modified or unmodified)
* You may use this theme for personal or commercial projects
* You may modify, translate or distribute
Off to Brothercake – yup GPL > download > upload > click hey presto !
Hack.
Tired.
Bed.
Work.
Two days pass …..oh what’s Alex Miller on about ?
Oh…..ok.
Yah Alex noticed.
I also noticed the Disclaimer pop into your site – http://www.flairandsquare.com/about/disclaimer/
Isnt there a LOT more to speak about with that ? Why have you deleted content from your blog ? Things are missing.
The search function evidences that.
Who asked you to do so and why have you responded to someone else telling you what to do ? Is your use of free themes really the issue at hand here or does it go deeper than that ?
To address your questions Alex in the open and with the world community watching;
“….Blog themes are usually free and as such we can’t possibly expect others not to use the same ones. You have to pay for that.
But what if that person is someone you know ?
What a blessing.
What if someone who has a fairly strong virtual identity and is in the same professional field, and is someone who visits your blog?
And includes you in there blogroll. Who is constant contact with you professionally and in the hyper-social sense of “present”. Who does not act like a matriach nor states what should or should not be done.
What if someone that you knew changed their blog theme to something almost identical to yours?
Wonderful. What an opportunity as Dan suggests.
Would you be surprised when you visited their space?
No.
Would you be annoyed or flattered?
Flattered as I’ve stated.
What if you had carried that theme through to other spaces?
Check here – http://alexanerhayes.com and here http://alexanderhayes.com/blog and here http://alexanderhayes.com/wiki
Would you change your theme?
Constantly. As the Sheikh in Dubai has stated – develop ? why ? Answer : why not for the benefit of humankind. ( the last word was the most important one )
What do you think?
I’m thinkin’ that we all have to do a lot more thinkin’ and not get caught up in the semantics of whether mine looks like yours. We all use the same widgets and hack them accordingly.
Turn the camera back on those who are telling you to be careful.
As Jo suggests;
“….how we consider, value and care for our network’s online identities.”
We’ve watched a few of our colleagues fall off the perch of late and that was because they misunderstood what constituted a breach of civil liberties.
A blog is more than skin deep.
Well… I guess I would relate this question back to fashion. If you had a friend who decided to buy the exact same outfit as you because they saw you wearing it and it looked good, even though someone else designed the clothes, would you be annoyed? You’re exterior appearance is how you express yourself, it shows other your identity and how you’d like to be portrayed.
I know I’d be irritated if a friend or work associate decided to take on my chosen identity (and blogs ARE an online identity). I think its a personal integrity and respect issue rather than theft or copying.
In response to the comment from Alex Hayes and to encourage further discussion about this post;
Branding & Themes…
“hey…thats an idea….perhaps we could have a change theme by day…….or lets-all create-a theme-that-looks-the-same-day.”
How then would I build on my brand, or my identity if it kept changing?
I think that would be a bit like suggesting that all fast food outlets use the same branding for one day, or that McDonalds changes their menu’s regularly? Although some of us would think that was pretty cool and would adapt, a large percentage of the population would not.
People come to know and trust (or not) a brand don’t they?
I look at someone like Jo Kay, her brand stands out, it is strong, and it’s consistent. I know her work, I recognise her work online, I trust it. I want people to feel like that about my work , my brand.
It’s about usability as well. Like many if my colleagues, I need some constants, I am time poor. There’s little time to go hunting around for something that was around here somewhere…
… it didn’t look like this yesterday…
…where’s that link gone?…
…it’s all moved around…
…no time for this now…
…see ya… I’ll look somewhere else…
Content & Disclaimer…
“I also noticed the Disclaimer pop into your site – http://www.flairandsquare.com/about/disclaimer/”
I use this space to share learning with my colleagues and online networks. Recently we have been discussing privacy and security and the Disclaimer was created for the purpose of exploration and discussion.
My blog is dynamic, content changes, is removed or moved around as part of my journey. If someone tells me they are not comfortable with something I have posted on my blog, and after some discussion, knowledge sharing, they are still not comfortable, I would remove it. I would expect the same.
McDonalds……..erk.
Brands are bland. I hear that Caryl Oliver is becoming caryloliver.com ….why ?
Integrity is in embracing change, knowing that fashions come and go, that change is constant.
I was told to remove content in my site last night and I decided to do so on a personal level, not because my organisation mediates my personal life.
Law and the resultant push down of corporate values dont mean that when we are told we dress differently, act differently nor gather in places differently…..do they ? or do they ?
Where does APEC ( woops….OPEC ) sit in that equation ?
I was told by work colleagues to remove my branding ten years ago. I was told by the community that the branding that I chose to use was too challenging.
“:…People come to know and trust (or not) a brand don’t they? ”
I disagree. People come to detest those who hide behind the homogeny.
Trust is earned and easily lost.
I gather that the tattoo I chose to have on my arm is identical to a million others out there in the networked public. The ones on my fingers and toes are a little different though.
That was an experiment in creating my own bland brand.
Personally – I think it’s rude to use the same theme as someone in your own network.
I relate this to a personal situation I am presently going through. We have painted our front door a very unusual purple. It’s the trim of our gutters, windows etc. It goes with the colours of our environment. Our next door neighbours have just extended. They have a new front door… and GUESS WHAT COLOUR IT IS!??? Our purple.
Now there are over one thousand (1000) flamin swatches of colour at the hardware… why did theu have to choose our colour? It’s just so unclassy, tacky even – and I’m not flattered – I’m pissed!
Brands are bland? Brands have distinct personalities (or at least Marketers try to create them to ensure brand loyalty and repetetion of purchase). Would you say Apple is a bland brand? Far from it…
I also understand ‘Pissed’s comments on the colour of his/her door. Whilst you didn’t invent the colour, it would of been nice to pick one of the other 999 colours in the spectrum. People (and brands) struggle for identity, for your neighbour to take this away from you is disrespectful.
Good comments from everyone though! Nice to see this is a great topic to discuss!
I would kill them, but seriously – I always hated it when people bought the same shoes as me!
I figure people read my blog for info not background. i’d probably leave it as it is.
Cool.
I recall somewhere back in the archives of http://alexanderhayesblog.blogspot.com something about networked identity being tantamount to a virus.
Blogger gave you I think it was twelve or perhaps sixteen different templates to choose from and guess what ? I counted just as many people in my network of contacts who chose or hacked the same template together and shared the journey until such time as they discovered Wordpress.com and Edublogs and so on.
About two years ago the frocks got frillier. The phones got more fanciful and the parties got more raucous.
Dis-enfranchised with the franchised people considered what free-ranging meant and began going back to what they knew best – http://alexanderhayesblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/synthesis.html ….the dot com, the domain and the ‘one-click’ installs…..paying poeple to hack etc….to be different…to be new, on the edge, with-it, hip, wick, not naff.
Then came along MySpace and Facebook and everyone buried themselves in there busily adding the same widgets and playing the same casino games. Along comes Secondlife and ewwwwh……your wearing a newbie skin.
More painting of the gutters. More frocks. More widgets. More plugins.
The same has occured in architecture. Same designs. Same walled cities. Same thumpin issues with drug-stuffed teenagers wearing the same unifroms and saying the same disgusting things to the same adults with the same plasma screens, bbq’s and pebble-paved driveways.
Leigh Blackall I recall said something like this;
“….Don’t freak out. You’re in the right place. I just thought it was time for a change in the way this blog looks. All the content is the same, and last I checked, was still all here… its just that, after the eLearning conference today, I saw many other people’s blogs and saw that the template I was using before this one was… very popular. I hope Blogger keep updating their templates – I like trying on new clothes….”
http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com/2005/02/new-look-for-talo-elearning-conference.html
The brand was bland and we sought to break out of that. We didnt go back.
We bought the same dresses and jackets and yet they looked different on each body.
Depends on what “body” you hang your #ffffff ’s.
Found it !
http://alexanderhayesblog.blogspot.com/search?q=networked+identity
Oh….talking about skins and branding courtesy of Luke Hodges over at ICVET dot edu dot dot
http://www.meangene.com/google/design_for_google.html
Dont we have a moral responsibility to encourage our learners in an educational context to explore how they can work together to build themes which grow identity rather than being subject to it….and when someone finds a stable and usable interface that this finding is shared and encouraged and grown and built upon.
That knowledge is the body and the guttering takes away that which would erode the foundations of the frocks that we chose of the plans down at the realtor’s who sold us the dream that one day we would be rich enough to pay the mortgage that the bank gave us to pay back without default according to the trends and the marketing and the sways of a not so bouyant marketplace effected by the governments decision to reve the economy by mining the lands that were negotiated from the rightful owners of those who we know form the core basis for our own spirtual identity.
Sheesh. I think there was more than one sentence in there.
Bloody teachers hey ?
not sure what the fuss is about, I just dont think its that special – but now you will go and look at mine and it is really not special!
Check the footer in my blog – http://www.alexanderhayes.com.
Thank you Alex, Jo, CogDog, Sean and everyone else who has contributed to this discussion.
I’m late to this discussion but intrigued by it – as much by who’s discussing the topic as the topic itself. Now I’m an edublogs user, too cheap to buy my own domain, not code-savvy enough to hack my own themes but I do like the idea of having a blog that’s distinctly my own.
When I look through James Farmer’s theme ensemble, the only ones I’m interested in are the ones with customisable headers. That way, I can use my own photos, my own photoshop splatterings to blend with a stock standard theme that no-one else can copy. And even though I’m a less than handsome specimen, putting my own mug up there in the header artwork guarantees no-one else is going to steal that piece of digital identity.
For what it’s worth.