The Canadian Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 It may be a little too early to do a roundup of the best redesigns of 2008 like we did last year, but with Thursday's one-two punch of new looks for social sites Twitter and FriendFeed, it's a good chance to take a look back at some of this year's redesigns and talk about what was changed or fixed. I've picked 10 of my favorites below, listed in no particular order. See also the honorable mentions section at the bottom of the post, which includes content sites or other places that didn't quite make the cut. 1. Twitter Twitter's new look isn't all that different from its old look, except for a slightly more rounded feel and the inclusion of tabs on the right side. Twitter's redesign was a twofold change: one part to simplify the interface, and another to reduce the resources needed to host the site. Now when users hop between various functions it doesn't reload the entire page, meaning a faster experience and less data to serve. The most interesting part of the redesign is actually something we don't know about. The tabbed interface on the right was apparently set in place to make room for additional features as they become available. It could be the new things from Twitter itself, or the foundation for special developer-created applications users will be able to use without leaving the service. 2. Facebook Facebook's new look blends in user chat with an applications start bar. More importantly it's made it easier to sort through and add content. The "new" Facebook was one of the most drastic changes of any site this year. Like Twitter, tabs took center stage, as did the chat which shares screen real estate with what's essentially the "start" button on Windows. This new menu let users launch networked applications from any page they're on. The change also embraced widescreen displays, making use of the extra room to let users build out the experience horizontally instead of having to scroll up and down. You can read more about it, and the user backlash, here. 3. FriendFeed FriendFeed's new look puts the navigation almost entirely on the left-hand side of the screen, and uhh, it doesn't normally have a pirate theme. FriendFeed's big change moved the navigation from the very top of the screen to the side, and allowed the posted content to make full use of widescreen displays. More importantly, it made room for additional features without squeezing things together, much like Twitter's. One of the most interesting aspects of the new look was that the company let any user who wanted to test it with the use of a special URL, then pushed out the look to everyone in less than a month. 4. Yahoo.com The new Yahoo will cut down on some of the clutter and include widgetized content akin to the company's My Yahoo service. Yahoo's big, bold new look is the only one on this list that's not actually out yet. The Web giant will be letting users add customized bits and pieces of content, much like users are currently allowed to do on the company's My Yahoo service (whose look was also tweaked this year). The big difference is that this custom content will sit alongside Yahoo's constantly updating stream of news, photos, and links from around the Web. Screenshots of the new look were posted by Yahoo on Wednesday and the company has already begun testing it on a select percentage of users to work out some of the kinks. Look for it in the coming months. 5. MySpace MySpace's updated look is a lot cleaner than its old one, and puts the focus on user-generated content from its members. MySpace's redesign took place in mid-June. It was a play to get some of the service's features and user-generated content into the limelight, and away from the sea of links that existed before. More importantly, it added things like better search, a profile editor that removed the need for hard coding, as well as a high-resolution media player for its video service. 6. Digg/Digg mobile The updated Digg.com and mobile version of Digg improved upon existing designs while keeping the core of the service generally the same. Digg's big change this year was the inclusion of a recommendation engine which completely re-tooled the way users parsed through newly submitted stories. On one hand, it improved your chances of finding content you'd be interested in based on past digging, however, it came at the expense of the cloud view, which simply grouped together all the story headlines in one mass. The same release brought with it a re-do of Digg mobile. Previously the site was only optimized for iPhones, but the new version let users on any handset view and vote on the site's top stories. 7. MobileMe (formerly .Mac) MobileMe's Web mail looks downright modern. The aging .Mac platform was replaced with a slew of cloud-powered Web apps that sync up with your various devices--at least when the system is working. With the announcement of MobileMe at WWDC '08 in early June, and subsequent release in mid-July, Apple effectively killed off .Mac in place of a handful of updated Web apps. One of the biggest changes was in its Web mail service which joins an online calendar, file and contact manager which are all accessed within a single interface. Despite its slicker look, the core functionality of the service suffered substantial problems in the first month or two, including the Web mail which was unavailable for some users. 8. LinkedIn LinkedIn's redesign was not a drastic one, but complimented some of the utilitarian aspects of the service. LinkedIn's February redesign came hot on the heels of a two-month long beta test for registered users of the site. Aimed mostly at integrating applications designed by developers, the site made room for growth with a left-hand side toolbar and tabs--much like Facebook's design before its facelift. 9. Delicious The new Delicious is dramatically different from its former self. Everything is far more angular, and tag management has been drastically improved. Yahoo's Delicious unveiled its new look to all users in late July. Users had been testing it in private beta since late 2007 (our look here). The big change was not only in the name, which ditched the hard to remember de.licio.us, but also what was going on behind the scenes to make it more responsive and scalable. The site also got a complete overhaul of its search engine, making it easier to dig through old stories, tags, and users. 10. Last.fm Last.fm's new look lets you start getting artist recommendations without having to sync up and share your current music library. Music social network Last.fm underwent a complete redesign in mid-July. With the new look came the capability to get recommendations simply based on dropping in a few band names instead of having the site analyze the user's music library and ratings. Like MobileMe, the service also suffered some stumbles with unreliability. Honorable mentions for other sites: CNET, Engadget, Wall Street Journal online, TechCrunch, CenterNetworks, Mashable, Bebo, Revision3, and coComment. If you think we left one off drop us a line. Source: Webware (cnet news) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rappy Veteran Posted September 20, 2008 Veteran Share Posted September 20, 2008 I really like Twitters new design, at first I thought it was really bad but I got used to it over the night :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViZioN Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 A lot of people don't like the new design of Last.fm. I think they even started a petition to get them to change it back. Personally I love the new skin! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtrftw Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 I'm so sick of hearing about Twitter. EDIT: To the OP, you need to credit where you got the article from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundayx Veteran Posted September 20, 2008 Veteran Share Posted September 20, 2008 Looking good everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterC Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 The only ones I like are Digg and MobileMe. :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalsoft Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Personally i'm not keen on the new last.fm design and i'm all for web2.0...just not overally keen on that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEIST Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Awesome, almost all of them look the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doli Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 I like Last.fm, yahoo's design is ok. A comment from http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10044541-93.html : ahhh...where is the link for the mail! 50 % of the people still go to yahoo for the mail and they still didn't create the link!!!!! Some people never learn!!!! haha , get that user a pair of eyeglasses :geek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitalE Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 A lot of people don't like the new design of Last.fm. I think they even started a petition to get them to change it back. Personally I love the new skin! :D I don't mind the site redesign, I just don't particularly like the new logo.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smigit Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 A lot of people don't like the new design of Last.fm. I think they even started a petition to get them to change it back. Personally I love the new skin! :D I like it too although IMHO the change wasn't that huge anyway. Yahoo's looks nice. IMHO Facebook, the site here that I use the most, is a real mixed bag. I love how they de-emphasized the 3rd party applications but at the same time some of the navigation feels horrible and options at times seem to be in all kinds of weird places. Also the page feels a bit spare and without any real focus at times now that the outer areas don't define a boarder as well as they used to. It's alright and I'm getting more used to finding my way when I need to modify settings ect, but I still think it has a lot of work that needs to be done. I have noticed I have about 10x less application invites now days thank god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Canadian Posted September 20, 2008 Author Share Posted September 20, 2008 EDIT: To the OP, you need to credit where you got the article from. You just proved, that you cannot read...as you can see at the bottom of my post it says: Source: Webware (cnet news) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PyX Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Sites that are not web 2.0 have crappy designs, poor quality pictures, too many pictures than it actually needs (for example textual stuff in pictures... why?), and web 2.0 stuff can have animations... so I don't really see what you mean! Most of these designs are terrific ;) I'm not sure of this facebook thing though, even after 3 months I'm still missing some features sometimes... takes a good 5 minutes to find them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mystic MVC Posted September 20, 2008 MVC Share Posted September 20, 2008 I really have to applaud Facebook's new design. Instead of having to scroll through pages and pages of crap to get to somebody's wall, all that stuff is kept separate on a different page making navigation so much easier. The backlash was pretty harsh but I think that is everybody's natural instinct to a big change, if only they would just try it out! :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VidER Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 There are two big websites that re-launched with new designs today. 1- Tv.com 2- alsaha.com (This is one of the biggest Arabic Web Communities ever, it was mentioned in the movie (The Kingdom))! VidER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+John. Subscriber¹ Posted September 21, 2008 Subscriber¹ Share Posted September 21, 2008 All IMO are honestly good redesigns. Anyone else like the new BBC homepage? I know it's been out for a while, but it's a lovely update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmatic Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 never really checked these sites out until this article... ive never given digg much thought before, but i think the new interface is seriously easy to use... also having the digg screensavers is a big plus too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Cuban Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 dont use any of thoose sites, i call facebook fachistbook, i called twitter sh*tter, call yahoo.... yahoo (big bro#3 always watching) digg only use to help my friends sometimes to get they're blogs more then 2 visits a day Delicious is nice, though foxmarks throws it out the window. i dont know where you poped that from im suprised you didn't say youtube, which is still on a roll i guess, edit: omg i'm sorry im an total A$ that i didnt read the topic title, thought best websites of 2008, ignore my post please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbfc_uk Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 I find the new Facebook a welcome redesign from the older more basic layout. Agree about the new BBC homepage, its a very sleek design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Cuban Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 next time when you copy paste a article http://m.news.com/2166-12_3-10046597-2.html give some credit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galley Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 Twitter, and Last.fm, FTW! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angel Blue01 Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 I've been using Yahoo since 1997 and I've never seen that new design I hate it! :x Its one of the worst designs I've ever seen. I wish they'd bring back the old design from 1999, no Javascript when its not needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMaster23 Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 How is this breaking news? And why are there only 2.0 sites in this thread? Not only the newer 2.0 sites got updates... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmatic Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 speaking of new sites... i came across another page comparing sites like google, microsoft, apple, yahoo , etc between 1998 and 2008 (thanks digg!) http://www.skidzopedia.com/2008/09/16/websites-back-in-1998/ one thing that they all have in common ... there were no ads back in 1998 :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundayx Veteran Posted September 21, 2008 Veteran Share Posted September 21, 2008 speaking of new sites... i came across another page comparing sites like google, microsoft, apple, yahoo , etc between 1998 and 2008 (thanks digg!) http://www.skidzopedia.com/2008/09/16/websites-back-in-1998/one thing that they all have in common ... there were no ads back in 1998 :( Holy look at how they changed Amazon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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