Mega-web-giant
Google expands its business further still, now moving into the almost-impossible-to-make-a-profit area of domain names. As suggested by this article, it wouldn't surprise me if they planned on combining this with one or more of their other popular services, such as this here blogging thang.
Also interesting will be the development of their domain rego
interface. Google have a tradition of producing exceptionally simple and user-friendly front-ends to each of their many products. To that end, there ain't a whole lotta scope for great change in the traditional domain selling process -- you search, you select, you enter your details, you wait -- but as we don't know yet
how they're planning to package and market their latest offering, it will be interesting to see what they do with their UI.
"Thank you, sir. And would you like a blog with that?"
One thing I hear domain resellers and customers alike complaining about more and more these days is the up-selling of "related" products during the domain rego process: hosting, email services, secure listings. Add to this, "Standard Google listings for only $10, Froogle $20" and "Get your own blog for only $5 a month more!", to name but a few possibilities, and the level of confusion already felt by the not so net-savvy may well turn into a highly tangled spaghetti of
web-sites-as-blogs-as-web-sites.
In fact, there seems to be rather a lot of that about already. During each of my many PDA software and tips hunting jaunts lately, I have come across a number of companies using blogs as the basis for their entire site.
Now, whilst I can understand (if I have to) the financial benefits and, perhaps, the time-saving advantages in using an "out-of-the-box" product, (not that blogs would normally fall into this category where business is concerned anyway) I absolutely cringe at the sight of "Company News" pages with just three entries, one for each year of existence, alongside a "Previous Entries" list containing "About Us", "Our Products" and "Contact Us". Pass me that bucket, please.
Another problem that arises from non-developers building web sites with blogs, is that all links open in new windows. I
loathe this. Fair enough if the link in question leads to an external site (in fact there's good reason to incorporate such functionality), however, when even the "Contact Us" link leads to a templated page exactly the same as the one you came from but in a brand-spanking, unrequested new window -- it's horrificly un-user-friendly in the extreme. Case in point:
the big blog company. Ok, so blogging is their biz. But this link thing... almost every single one on the page... it's ugly, and it gets uglier in many more windows if you look around. Avoid both that site and that practice at all costs, dear friends. I beg you.
Firefox can help here. (But where can't it, when we are talking web!) Add the following lines to your
usercontent.css file (found in your Firefox Profile directory, see the FF Help pages for more on that) and when you mouse over links your cursor will change to a cross-hair for external ones, and a "move" cursor for javascript ones:
/* Change cursor for links that open in new window */
:link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"], :link[target="_new"], :visited[target="_new"] {
cursor: crosshair;
}
/* Change cursor for JavaScript links */
a[href^="javascript:"] {
cursor: move;
}
Firefox rocks, incidentally. (In case you hadn't heard.) ;-)
