jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Update: Microsoft to Roll Out Big MSN Redesign

Update: After some delay, Microsoft is reportedly now rolling out the new MSN home page design over the next couple weeks. Original Article: MSN.com gets about 85 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone, according to Compete. That’s significantly more than AOL.com. So now that Microsoft has unveiled a redesign to it, it stands to reason that a lot of people are going to be...

Google Testing a Revamp of the Search Results Page

Update 2: One of my co-workers is seeing the new SERPs: Update: Danny Sullivan reports that "slight variations" of this design are "live in the wild," and "still being shown to a randomly selected group of people," and that Google doesn’t have an expected launch date for a complete roll-out. Original Article (11/19): Google is testing a new user...

Facebook Fixes News Feed, Still Irritates Users

Facebook has responded to a news feed issue that users have been experiencing and bellyaching about. On its Facebook Page, the company posted: "We’ve heard from many of you who are seeing a delay in your News Feed posts. We’ve fixed this issue and you should see your News Feeds gradually return to normal. Thanks for your feedback." While at the moment, 3,711 people "like...

More Than Just a Redesign Going on with Facebook This Week

It’s been a pretty big week for Facebook. Not only is there a lot of talk about Facebook’s potential for becoming the top news source on the web, but the company celebrated its sixth birthday, is passing the 400 million user mark, and began rolling out some new design changes. In addition, the company is said to be rewriting its messaging feature and preparing to launch a webmail product,...

Google Experiments with Different Google News Design

Some people have spotted a new design for Google News, which is part of a limited test experiment Google is running. A Google employee posted the following message in the Google News Help Forum: At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a small test of a new Google News homepage design. More information about...

YouTube Makes Changes to Where Users Spend Most Time

YouTube has unveiled a new version of its video pages. They are not rolled out as the default at this point, but users can opt-in to view them in the new format (they can easily opt out as well). "In the coming weeks, we’ll be eager to hear what the community thinks and, as with many things in this newly designed user experience, we’ll incorporate their feedback in future iterations,"...

Some Facebook Users Get New Design

Update: Some Facebook users are reportedly now seeing a new Facebook design that looks like the screenshots here. The design is similiar to the one below, with some slight differences. Original Article: Reports and screenshots have surfaced indicating possible further design changes to the Facebook home page. These changes would include an altered header with drop-down menus for things like chat,...

LinkedIn Launches New Design

Update: LinkedIn is now in the process of rolling out the new design to all users. More from the LinkedIn Blog. Original Article: LinkedIn is testing a new design. Only a select number of users will see it, however. New features include: -  A global navigation bar at the top of the page that provides convenient access to all LinkedIn services. - Simplified local navigation within each...

New Google Home Page: Does it Remove or Add Distraction?

Google has launched its new homepage, which looks generally the same, but removes everything but the logo, search box, and two buttons until the user moves the mouse. Google says most people go to the Google home page to search, and they wanted to remove the other distractions, unless users specifically want to see them. This is an interesting philosophy, because it certainly grabs your attention...

Facebook Tests “Many” New Design Changes

Reports and screenshots have surfaced indicating possible further design changes to the Facebook home page. These changes would include an altered header with drop-down menus for things like chat, messages, and notifications (Via SAI). There would also be greater emphasis placed on the search box. It would be moved further to the left, and more into the center of the page. Such emphasis on search...

New AOL (or is it Aol.?) Logo Revealed

AOL has shown off a new logo, which it considers a significant part of its new "brand identity." That is of course to go with its newfound independence from Time Warner. The logo is simple. Aol. That’s it – capital A, lower-case o, lower case l, and a period. "Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers...

YouTube Sets Date For Changing Channels

Update: YouTube says: Over the past few months we’ve been hard at work redesigning our brand channel layout and many partners and advertisers have already opted into, and taken advantage of, this new design. Today we’re beginning the process of converting all remaining partner and advertiser channels still using the older platform to the new one. Original Article: It has been...

Google Search Gets Bigger…Literally

In case you haven’t noticed by now, Google has gotten bigger. The homepage and search results pages now have a bigger searchbox, complete with a bigger font when you type in a query. "Although this is a very simple idea and an even simpler change, we’re excited about it — because it symbolizes our focus on search and because it makes our clean, minimalist homepage even easier...

More Things to Look For From New YouTube Channels

The full launch of YouTube’s new channels is getting to be long overdue, but the date is still unknown at this point. As YouTube keeps saying however, they’re getting closer. Meanwhile, the channels have been available to those who have tried hard enough to gain access to them, and YouTube continues to make improvements to them. One such improvement just made, is the ability to reorder...

Facebook Makes Subtle Changes to Design

Facebook has quietly made a few changes to its design. It’s not exactly a huge overhaul that will provoke the backlash that last year’s big redesign did, but just a few simple things that people shouldn’t have too much of a problem with. In fact, consider yourself "on the ball" if you’ve even noticed them without being told about them. One difference is just a straight...