[Sigia-l] Google introduces animated icons on homepage

[James Aylett]

Ziya Oz wrote:

> That branding/focus actually helped them innovate as well. What
> started out as a simple searchbox now is the conduit to an amazing
> array of services and functionalities. With another company we could
> easily have been looking at a smorgasbord of confusion.

I just went to the Google UK homepage, and got the default layout. It's a mess - precisely a smorgasbord of confusion. For some reason there are *two* different news feeds, an inaccurate weather picture, 1/12 of the screen taken up by a clock and calendar, and a daily horoscope for a random star sign that is not me. Oh - and a 'word of the day' box that has one of the most unexpected usage examples I've encountered ever:

  "We've gone and lost your father's flat, Diana,
   and I have a presentiment that we'll not be
   allowed to row on the pond any more."

(The word being presentiment. Truly weird.)

If this is focus, it's done poorly. The fact that there's ample whitespace around the widgets doesn't make it any easier to figure out what's going on. It feels like a slightly whiter version of MSN.

Of course, I use the search box in my browser. I wonder why?

James

-- 
James Aylett
 Lead Technical Architect, DoubleClick
 Direct line +44 20 7183 9334