ClearTrip vs. Yatra’s travel calendar: Design (L)imitation?
They say “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and it’s really cool if your competitor does that to you!
Came across the travel calendar of two competing sites – Yatra vs. ClearTrip and looks like one is flattered with the other!
The travel calendar (of both ClearTrip and Yatra) has pretty much the same UI components and even the same visual display of data (click on the thumbnails).
Had it been a regular component (like text box/drop box/simple css tweaks etc), things are acceptable – but definitely not when you see the same set of customized UI components/ modules in two diff. sites (Y! copied Digg’s pushbutton and blogosphere screamed)
Well, technology always gets commoditized, but innovation is not; so smart players will hopefully keep innovating.
What do you say?
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About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
All we can say is Imitation is a form of flattery
We’ll always keep innovating . People can follow if they want
Wouldn’t be the first time. It seems Yatra is no stranger to imitating Cleartrip:
http://techsutra.blogspot.com/2007/04/plagiarism-by-yatracom.html
Imitation is putting it mildly – this is shameless stealing.
I do understand the reason behind all the stealing … Yatra guys are a totally clueless bunch of idiots. Look at their JavaScript code, and you will know. It has all the signs of stupid programming … bad code indentation, commented code in production, stupid whitespace in the file, what not. You can take a look at it yourself — http://content.yatra.com/AIR/CALENDAR/include/js/farecalendar.js
Yatra people: Please get some half-decent programmers on-board, will you?
ClearMan It seems like that .. u have been kicked out of yatra.com … everyone copies from net .. ohh javascript.. well none writes their own .. Dont be so rude !!!
I am Glad Cleartrip are trend setters
I use them often and love their user interface I wont be surprised if Yatra ape’s their clean user interface.
No wonder they don’t copy from iXigo
Hey Sudhanshu,
What do you have against Ixigo mate?
Can’t handle the fact that they got funded a week ago?
Hey Sudhir, I saw a number of your videos on indiainteracts.com. I just loved them. I hope you’ll be doing it more often.
I don’t have anything against Ixigo. On the contrary, I think they are far too good to be copied. (Atleast by yatra, the javascript is way too complicated)
Ok Sudhanshu – Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you.
Yes – Have done a couple this month and covered Proto last month. Thanks for the feedback, will keep in touch.
Cheers!
what’ the story? and what’s wrong in copying, u can’t stop that…as rightly mentioned by ashish, innovation can’t be copied and innovators will lead the way/succeed eventually.
Cleartrips interface even though borrowed off kayak has a nice clean feel.
Ixigo’s result displaying modules and the quick/fast/easy search are overall much better than most of these sites.
I don’t see anything like imitation in this case.
This is a simple design of calender. Of course you can make it jazzy by adding loads of CSS but for sites who want to keep it simple, what innovation do you expect?
Personally, I luv Interface of ClearTrip… nice lightweight, neat-n-clean interface they have.
But then what sort’a innovation in a simple calender!
Cleartrip has the best user interface and the experience amongst all the travel portals in India. It appears to me that they are the only thinking about the product, experience and usability. The others really don’t care. I have used all 3 and clearly my experience with CT has been the best