Yahool! has been busy with its mission to "expand the user's visual space," otherwise known throughout the blogosphere as the Yahoo! homepage redesign. Over at Read/WriteWeb, in a podcast interview with "VP of Front Doors" Tapan Bhat describes the challenges of using the programming language Ajax, and the extensive testing that was required. The interface is wider (but, not hugely wide -- plenty of white space on my tiny but self-described "widescreen" laptop), more muted (so Web 2.0), tab-heavy and more multi-media-rich. There's plenty of effusion at the Yahoo! User Interface Blog, where you can tour the "patterns" behind the redesign ("this is similar to creating a play. At any given time the view on the stage is only a small part of the action. The backstage, props, and other actors are all being prepared for the next scene. A home page can provide ways to allow a user to take a 'sneak peek' at additional content and essentially 'open up' the page space") and the many benefits of "Ajax-ifying" the design.

Meanwhile, Google has launched Notebook, a new way to "clip and collect information" as you surf. According to Google Blog, Notebook "surfs along quietly with you as you browse, letting you clip and annotate whatever text, images, and links that help answer your question, all without ever leaving the webpage you're on."
Sounds like a press release! We're going to have to go outside Google for some buzz, I guess. Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion is "disappointed" and wonders why it couldn't be integrated into the Google toolbar or sit inside your browser like Google Talk. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch says it's obviously competing directly with del.icio.us and yawns, "ho-hum." He also wonders why Google didn't just acquire del.icio.us (maybe they're not selling?You'd think someone would have snapped the luscious bookmarking site up by now, if they were. Right. Because Yahoo! already did! Silly.) and delivers a whopper of a putdown: he sees "little or no product vision coming out of Google, sitting fat and arrogant on it its Adsense revenues." Well then.
Most importantly: two launches today both make heavy use of Ajax. Int-eresting!
Sounds like a press release! We're going to have to go outside Google for some buzz, I guess. Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion is "disappointed" and wonders why it couldn't be integrated into the Google toolbar or sit inside your browser like Google Talk. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch says it's obviously competing directly with del.icio.us and yawns, "ho-hum." He also wonders why Google didn't just acquire del.icio.us (maybe they're not selling?
Most importantly: two launches today both make heavy use of Ajax. Int-eresting!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-16-2006 @ 2:11PM
ryan said...
Yahoo owns Del.c.ious, that's why Google didn't buy it.
5-16-2006 @ 4:38PM
BengaliGuru said...
I have seen the new design of yahoo.com. Franckly speaking I did not like the look. I like the current look, infact I like it so much that my own site (http://bengaliguru.com) is alike yahoo. Even they are changing, I am not ...
-Guru
Take it from me. I am the Guru!
http://bengaliguru.com
5-17-2006 @ 2:24AM
Pat McCarthy said...
I'm sure Google didn't acquire del.icio.us because Yahoo bought them months ago.