Would it come to a surprise that Google has no traditional web site? The Google blog as it turns out, is THE user targeted site for the company. In my last article about Jakob Nielsen, the usability expert, the situation was about "pre-blogging era" newsletter format. In the case of Google, it's a case of "perfect blogging era" timing. Gooogle acquired Blogger and adopted the blog format as a user communication format. In the Google case, the blog format was the obvious choice. While internet use and innovation driven change seem to speed forward faster and faster, some things stay the same. In both cases of Nielsen and Google, the format they chose has stayed the same while users have moved to other formats and different uses.
Should I suggest to Google to "go mainstream" with a standard web site? I am not sure here. What I would suggest it to add the newer blogging features such as social media connections and widgets with related products and content. While I understand that Google is a large company with complex structure (which leads to diverse set of requirements and management opinions), there is still a customer perspective. With the way you format a message and how you present it, fresh features are useful (they keep up interest.) Here is what we see on a daily basis. Someone comes up with a widget, a site idea or even a whole new category or format, the world buzzes and tries the new idea, some ideas stick and some go by the way of the Dodo bird. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In solved the issue of connection and association. Blogs, straight web sites, wikis and other formats were not able to deliver on this feature. Facebook and Twitter give users the ability to connect and communicate with a group of people and share all kind of media formats: videos, pictures, text files, etc. This is what the sites sticking with one format style are missing as the internet use grows with innovation.
The general lesson to learn here is how to adapt to change. Each of us needs to figure out what format, content, message and design suits their needs. The internet gives us almost instant publishing. With it come the dilemma: should we follow every new innovation or stick with what we have. What seems to work the best is to follow trends and to test new innovations as they come. Blogs are not only a social format, essentially giving us the unofficial (sometimes even the controversial / opposition) voice, they are also a useful format, giving a historical timeline of articles, pictures and videos. None of us can predict what will "stick", which generally means what will STAY USEFUL. We also do not know what will become a fad and disappear in a few months. Nielsen may be correct by arguing for the usefulness and sustainability of the newsletter format. Yet he is not correct with respect to the usefulness and popularity of the blog. Google may be correct in the usefulness of the blog. Yet they may be missing on a useful (and strategic) social media and networking features.
Are there good examples of applications which enable testing new innovations and keeping up with popular trends? Of course, the blog platform Word Press probably has the most flexibility to keep up and adapt. It has quietly become the most popular publishing framework available. Other frameworks have not kept up and are less popular. There are practical as well as image related reasons for this. (by image related reasons, I mean the negative impression users have towards some software applications.) Blogger has not seem to be as flexible or as extensible as Word Press, yet it does give the ability to use external formats and code to connect and interact with innovative new applications. In general, the open source applications tend not to be as long lasting as we expect them to be (i.e. Joomla.) On the other hand, proprietary applications (like Blogger, Type Pad) are limited in flexibility due to company or business policy restrictions. Sometimes companies like Google see new innovators (i.e. Facebook, Twitter) as rivals. So take your pick in a platform. Either way, you can always switch if a key feature in one platform is more useful or actually necessary for your site.
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