Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcurtis | Hacker News Reader

I would hardly call Google's interface designers "tasteful."

It seems more likely that they knew they were bad designers so they just went with the simplest possible design.

Yahoo doesn't get enough credit. They are doing some pretty awesome and forward-looking stuff. The reason they're falling behind, I think, is because the "yahoo" brand is so large and complex that it's hard to find anything by going to their site. It probably doesn't help that AOL.com ripped off the design almost to the pixel (I'm extremely surprised there has not been a lawsuit there).

View on HN

It seems more likely that they knew they were bad designers so they just went with the simplest possible design.

Yes, I think that is exactly it. But even that level of performance is quite rare. In design, merely simple is version 1 of good.

it wasnt exactly the 1st version. their logo and appearance was much bulgier

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-04-21-n63.html

What I said that simple was version 1 of good. I.e. a metaphor. I wasn't claiming that the current G frontpage was their first version.

ui is not always about being good looking as it about being functional. UI/experience design is totally differnt from graphic design and i see a lot of people confusing it still. (which is why u dont want a graphic designer design your ui but instead a hacker with a good taste can build a better ui)

I've switched my search from Google to Yahoo, but Yahoo mail still sucks too much to use over GMail.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a Yahoo documents.

If Microsoft want to beat Google, they need to start pushing out on-line document editing, Excel, etc., under the MS brand but through Yahoo infrastructure and internet know-how.

I think no matter how hard Microsoft tries to beat Google at their game, it's not going to happen. Google has held the upper hand since day one. It's obvious they know the pressure points to their own company and they sure know what to do when someone thinks about beating them at their own game.

Microsoft is making the mistake of trying to beat giants in one market when they are already a giant in their own. I'm not sure how Microsoft wants to play, but I am certain this isn't going to turn out like a David vs. Goliath.

You don't have to be the #1 player in a market to make tons of money from it. If Microsoft's advertising wing made a tenth of what Google makes, they'd be pretty happy.

You don't have to be top to be profitable but there are disproportionate rewards from being top.

Yeah, I posted the above, but I don't believe that current management at MS has a prayer on executing successfully on anything different or new. I sure that there are factions within MS that viewed the obvious lock-in of Sharepoint as the great white hope that would roll back the internet threat and safely lock the 'intranetwork' to MS. Well, they can forget that, except for a few of the 'large client' sheep.

It seems like any new interesting project is always 'Skunkworks'ed, thinking of XBox, Zune, MS Research - "The Project formerly known as 'Half the World's Smartest Researchers (Being Paid not to work ((At Google)))"', LOL.

I really mean 'why', just why are they bothering with Yahoo? I mean, they will just run it into the ground. The "Next Great Idea" (tm), the next Facebook, the next You Tube, the next Slashdot is probably swiftly exiting Yahoo as we speak.

MS Research is completely separate from the product teams. Researchers seem disdainful of product team folks, and vice-versa.

One time over lunch I asked a technical manager about the role of theory in our work. His response: "Remember that time we had a guy with a phD in our group? We wasted so much time on theory and did nothing practical". Everyone laughed, and promptly changed the topic.

Another time I had an interview with their search engine team. I ended up in a fairly heated argument with the interviewer about where innovation comes from. Her contention was that Research should do all the innovating, and throw the innovations over the wall to product teams, and product teams obediently implement. Which I said was... less than ideal. "No hire" =)

Seems to me in Google, product people and theory people are tight, or even the same people. MS's schism approach will never touch that.

"I really mean 'why', just why are they bothering with Yahoo?"

Anyone else old enough to remember Novell combining with WordPerfect way back when to take on Microsoft? You'd think Ballmer, having been through that on the winning side would know better.

Me too, I think by now Yahoo search is about as good as Google, for some things even a lot better. It's their ads that are much worse.

Google docs is a gamble that may or may not pay off, but it's not making them any (significant) money.

Yahoo does feel very unfocused. That's probably a bad sign.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com