On the Blankness of Google

Am I the only one who finds those "cool" Bing background pictures very distracting?

I think Google has it right. Users want to search so just give them the search by default. No extra crap needed until you actively ask for it.

I think Yahoo knows it can't compete with Google in search results, so why creating a page where the only thing you can do is experience crappy search results and nothing else?

At least this way they're attracting a niche of people who do like a more portal like search engine. And in some places that niche is the majority of the population, like in Japan, where Yahoo seems to be very successful.

If the users just want a search box they have http://search.yahoo.com/. I don't know if they can customize that do be the default.

So the thing "Yahoo don't quite get it" doesn't seem right to me.

Yahoo has turned its home page into a minefield. You can hardly move the mouse without some huge ugly dialog popping up and interfering with your use of the site.

I avoid the home page as much as possible at Yahoo, its a complete disaster.

I wonder with advent of search widgets in browsers (and the location bar as search box in Chrome) how many users actually go to bing.com or google.com? I certainly don't.

Why should someone whose website looks like that have an opinion on design that anyone should listen to?