You can't call this a 1-to-1 copy. Sure, when you look at them side by side, they have a lot of elements in common and use a similar color scheme. But for the most part these elements are common to a lot of websites in general. (e.g. Lighthouse by entp, or http://www.campaignmonitor.com/ and many more) Visual Website Optimizer was a 1-to-1 copy of Basecamp to the point where they were actually using the exact background image. But I'd say that at most Etacts was inspired by the general style of many websites/web-apps rather than Metalab in particular.
However, I had never looked at Basecamp vs. Ballpark (though I could tell that they both follow the same trends) and if Metalab were to call Etacts out for their design as jayair suggests, I'd like to hear Metalab's explanation for the copy of Basecamp's design and copy.
"The Better Way To Get Projects Done" => "The Better Way To Get Paid"; "See Plans and Pricing/30-day free trial, sign up in 60 seconds" => "See Plans and Pricing/30-day Free Trial. Get started in 60 seconds."
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Metalab does have a distinct style in a lot of their designs (they seem to love text-shadows for example) but they're not the inventors of it either. The layout is pretty common place nowadays. (or as lunaru put it about a year ago when Ballpark came out: "the layout is pretty much a de facto standard" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557277)
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forget looking too close...it is it...that's a 1 to 1 copy of their template
And we know where the MOTHER SOURCE TEMPLATE resides:
http://basecamphq.com/
You can't call this a 1-to-1 copy. Sure, when you look at them side by side, they have a lot of elements in common and use a similar color scheme. But for the most part these elements are common to a lot of websites in general. (e.g. Lighthouse by entp, or http://www.campaignmonitor.com/ and many more) Visual Website Optimizer was a 1-to-1 copy of Basecamp to the point where they were actually using the exact background image. But I'd say that at most Etacts was inspired by the general style of many websites/web-apps rather than Metalab in particular.
However, I had never looked at Basecamp vs. Ballpark (though I could tell that they both follow the same trends) and if Metalab were to call Etacts out for their design as jayair suggests, I'd like to hear Metalab's explanation for the copy of Basecamp's design and copy.
"The Better Way To Get Projects Done" => "The Better Way To Get Paid"; "See Plans and Pricing/30-day free trial, sign up in 60 seconds" => "See Plans and Pricing/30-day Free Trial. Get started in 60 seconds."
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Metalab does have a distinct style in a lot of their designs (they seem to love text-shadows for example) but they're not the inventors of it either. The layout is pretty common place nowadays. (or as lunaru put it about a year ago when Ballpark came out: "the layout is pretty much a de facto standard" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557277)
Yeah and it should be changed soon.
@ETacts Again if you need any help let me know.