There's an image that's growing in popularity and making its way across the internet thanks to Digg. It shows screen shots of the home pages of AOL, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) with the title, "There's a Reason Google's Best," spanning across the top of all three screen shots. You can see the image below and click the link (Why Google is Best) to see the full size image.
This image opens an interesting discussion. Can the case be made that Google is best because their home page delivers exactly what the majority of customers are looking for without any extraneous information or messages that clutter the page, confuse visitors and drive them away?
I'm not sure if I buy this argument. While I think there is some validity to it from a marketing perspective, I think there is actually a lot more to Google's success than a single message on the Google home page.
So what do you think?
It might be better to classify AOL and Yahoo as portals, and while the web-savvy prefer to get in and get out with their searching, there is a subset who like what portals provide. Originally I think it was thought that search would be a subset of portals. Isn't that a real life lesson to listen to your customers?
Brian
(And Susan, if you displayed what Yahoo and AOL looked like in the 90's it was even a more stark comparison)
Posted by: Brian | March 3, 2008 6:15 AM | Permalink to Comment