surelyyourenotserious.com
Less IS More

I remember back in 2001 I was working at military contract firm with Josh Mondragon. Back then, I got all my news and did all my web searches from my.yahoo.com. One day, looking over Josh’s shoulder I saw Google.com for the first time.

What value could that site possibly be? There’s nothing on it! There’s no information, no news, no weather, no cute customizable layout. Just a dorky logo and a search form. How worthless is that?!

Then, I started using Google when my searches on Yahoo didn’t find what I was looking for. Then I noticed how remarkablly fast Google was. Within a week, “google” had become a new verb in my lexicon. Within a month, Google was my new default home page.

There’s more to Google than fast searches. There’s something that draws people to simple design. I found an article a while back that compared Yahoo and Google over time, as Google moved from a garage company to the internet powerhouse. There’s a great image of the screen shot progression over the years. (Click here to see it.)

Now, given that simple, boring layout, and given the fact that Google’s profits are now bigger than the GNP of most 3rd world countries, which layout would you prefer on your web site?

Yeah, me too. (But blogs don’t count. I’m sticking with the silly 50’s theme, thank you very much.)

Read the complete article here.

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