Google has recently released quite a tweak to its google.com web design to a select few users. Below are a couple of screenshots of the new web design from Google. Clicking the screen shots below will show the new web design, which features more squared off search button, a highlighted sidebar on search results and a change in default link colour to a significantly lighter shade of blue.
This also appears to be a slight re-brand of the Google logo as well. The Google logo in these screen shots are noticeably less bevelled than the current logo and is without the drop shadow on the existing logo.
In an update to our previous post on Google Buzz, we now have a screenshot to show of the Google Buzz interface within Gmail. The following screenshot shows the Google Buzz Welcome screen, as shown the first time you access Google Buzz.
Google has tried social networking in the past, with ventures such as Orkut and Google Friend Connect, however neither have really become very popular. In fact, I imagine many of you reading this article may not have heard of Orkut at all. Google Friend Connect on the other hand is a API for web developers to put Google hosted social networking features directly into their websites via a iframes, JavaScript and AJAX.
Anyway, I’m here to talk about Google Buzz, which is a new social network that Google are releasing to all Gmail users. It combines elements of Twitter and Facebook and is integrated directly into the user interface of Gmail. Google started the launch of Google Buzz to a small selection of Gmail users yesterday (9th February 2010) and is continuing to release Google Buzz to more and more people over the next few days.
Take a look at this Google Buzz demonstration video. It is obvious from Google Buzz, that many elements of the service are inspired heavily by existing microblogging and social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter and identi.ca.
Google Buzz on Google Apps?
Google has stated that Google Buzz is not yet available for users of Google Apps for Domains yet, but it is being worked on. Based on this, it can be anticipated that Google Buzz for Google Apps will probably be released within a couple of weeks, towards to end of the Google Buzz launch for regular Gmail users.
Google Buzz and Search Engine Optimisation
I may be discussing Google Buzz more as this service develops and is released to more and more users. As Google Buzz listing will appear alongside Twitter results in Google search engine results pages (SERPs), Google Buzz may also create a buzz in the search engine optimisation community.
If you’re interested in search engine optimisation for your website from a team who really know what they’re doing, take at look some of the search engine optimisation work we do and see examples on our live SEO results page. If you just want some more about this intriguing new product from Google, take a look at the official Google Buzz pages.
WordPress, possibly the most popular blogging software out there, is set to heavily open source the design of its user interface this year.
WordPress is an open source blogging solution written in PHP and powered by a MySQL database backend. Code wise, it is entirely open source and licensed in entirety under the GNU General Public License (version 2), and as of typing this, it is used by over 200 million websites worldwide.
Design in WordPress has previously relied on contest to refresh the system’s administration section header, colour schemes and icon sets. This year however, the WordPress community are looking to heavily drive the concept of open source design, with a focus on many more design contests, a dedicated WordPress user interface design blog and significantly in the way of general communication about the direction the user interface is to take. To this end, there will be the new UI design blog, a newly created Wordpress UI IRC channel (#wordpress-ui on Freenode) and a more noticeable mention of WordPress design on the official WordPress mailing lists.
If you’re interested in helping to design the new user interface for WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms out there, see the original open-source design article on the official WordPress blog.
If you want more information on how you can use WordPress for your own website, or would like to see how we can integrate a WordPress powered blog into your existing website, feel free to contact us right now!
As web developers, we are using web browsers continually to preview and debug our web pages, dynamic web application and the website page’s we develop. However, many consumers are unsure of what a web browser actually is. Admittedly, for many, this can be very confusing as there are such a lot of Internet related terms flying around now that it can be difficult to explain exactly what a web browser is. This can be especially true where many web services, such as e-mail and search engines are so tightly integrated into the web browser and the web browsing experience.
Speaking of search engines, Google, which I’m sure you have all heard of, prepared an excellent video which demonstrates and explain the concept of a web browser and attempts to explain exactly what a web browser is, and indeed, what it is not. If you are in any way unsure, take a look at the video below.
At Rapid Web, our best work is in our websites and our dynamic web applications. If you wish, you can find out a bit more about us, our web design and some of the work we do.
