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Groups gone, Video instead

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

Wednesday, August 9, 2006
17 years ago11,569 views

I just noticed that on the Google homepage, Groups is gone and Video is there instead. I think this is new.

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Nice Spotting! Appearently more users go Video-ing than Grouping.

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Froogle's gone too.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

=="Appearently more users go Video-ing than Grouping."

No appearently, google is pushing for food stamps!!

Video is revenue generating, groups is not!! :)-

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

hmm not for me, maybe for a few. I still get the same old layout.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Still the same here. I'll check back tomorrow – maybe it's currently being rolled out?

Web Images Groups News Froogle Maps more »

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Sohil : Here is the push ...

http://slash.pd.googlepages.com/video1.png

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

btw I just noticed that the drop down box to the "more" link has been implemented too.. folks should be seeing – as this this is a production roll..!!

http://slash.pd.googlepages.com/video2.png

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

what is the ip address of that google datacenter /pd?

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

61 ms 49 ms 49 ms 66.249.95.149
44 ms 50 ms 50 ms 64.233.187.99 <=== DC/IP

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

technically its DC @ 66.102.11.189:http ESTABLISHED

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Yep See it now.

Splasho [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Web Images Groups News Froogle Maps Desktop more »

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I just noticed the drop down box.

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I've got the drop down box as well. I like the new format :)

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

same overhere!

Ridwan [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Google is getting better every day...

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

"Web Images Groups News more »"
nothing more :-(

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

FYI, I've got the new version on 66.249.91.99 in the UK.

That popup / drop down is a pointless IMHO. I've now got to make three clicks to get to any other service from the home page (whereas before it was only two), apart from Books, Froogle or Groups for which I still have to click twice.

Surely they've just bloated their code too. All that code for that dropdown (JS + CSS + HTML) is around 2KB – multiply that by billions of users and that's a lot of bandwidth...

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Just one question Tony, because you got this interface and that's not my case : if you add "&hl=fr" or and other language, does it work too?

PS : look you cookies :-)

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

>> if you add "&hl=fr" or and other language, does it work too?

Nope. BTW, when I said "in the UK" I was still referring to Google.com (and not Google.co.uk).

Adam B. [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

I saw this a few times yesterday, and then it changed back. Saw it again this morning. It's a shame really, I know they're trying to promote google video. But I really use groups a lot for research. If only they'd let us customize those links...

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> All that code for that dropdown (JS + CSS + HTML) is
> around 2KB – multiply that by billions of users and that's a
> lot of bandwidth...

I don't think they seriously care about bandwidth... or why do they use such things as the font tag? Wouldn't they be able to get a much leaner homepage by just putting up a W3C-Strict homepage? Plus, if they outsource all the stuff like "bgcolor=#ffffff text=#000000 link=#0000cc vlink=#551a8b..." to a CSS (a CSS in which you can write #fff instead of #fffff!), it might do much better caching on clients. Sure, they would have to add all the characters of the doctype :)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Why don't they add like up to around 6 services in the more box? Seems the perfect place for this.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Or they could change their logo from GIF to PNG and crop it to the very last pixel... they'd save bytes without any change in appearance.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< I don't think they seriously care about bandwidth... or why do they use such things as the font tag? Wouldn't they be able to get a much leaner homepage by just putting up a W3C-Strict homepage? >>

Backwards compatibility perhaps? (At least for their primary service – i.e. search.) I'm sure I read somewhere once that one reason they don't validate their HTML code is because it uses less bandwidth. (That might have even been Matt Cutts... not sure.)

Also, I'm not sure using CSS is always that much lighter (if at all) especially on such simple designs:

i.e. <font size="-1"></font> vs. <span style="font-size:80%"></span>

Either way, I think they'd be better off just linking straight to the "More" page rather than using that popup/dropdown. Or, better still, they should let you choose which links to have there (which I guess is kind of achievable using the Personalized Home page).

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think they should let you choose which links you have too.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

BTW, here's the Matt Cutts quote I was thinking of:

<< Google’s home page doesn’t validate and that’s mostly by design to save precious bytes. Will the world end because Google doesn’t put quotes around color attributes? No, and it makes the page load faster. :) >>

From: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-11-17-n52.html

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> i.e. <font size="-1"></font> vs. <span style="font-size:80%"></span>

No no, all styles would be external. And don't forget that once the CSS is cached it can be used for the following result page as well. We need to add it up when we compare bandwidth.

And a Strict page is fully backwards compatible in terms of content... and i don't think Google thinks of Netscape 3 users a lot (many of their apps won't work in NS3, I guess). Also, I make a bet that Strict will save bandwidth.

I should give it a try.

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Would be better if you could select the option you saw, according to your usage. Its nice to make it more personnel :)

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It even works when you're in the search results.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I've just noticed that they are using *some* CSS now, so that's more than they used to do.

Philipp – I should probably point out that I agree with you entirely 100%. I prefer CSS and XHTML over FONT tags and non-validating HTML. I'm also sure they could save more bandwidth by producing an XHTML Strict version of the Google home page if they really wanted to. (I'm sure I've seen someone who did this somewhere before.) I'm just trying to understand *why* Google doesn't do this – and playing Devil's Advocate if you like! ;-)

BTW, their addition of "Video" to the home page has a few HTML errors (like two closing </a> tags next to each other) and unneccesary whitespace... sorting that out would free up some precious bytes too!

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

// Jake's View

Works everywhere on Google.

James [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

TD, Jake's View: I'm only seeing it on the results pages for web search, images and news at least still have the old choices.

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think one of the reasons they ditched the froogle link is that you can just search for a product name, and it almost always triggers the Froogle onebox.

Am I correct in saying they haven't changed the links on the Personalized Homepage? I still see the Froogle link (and no Video link) on there.

Jeremy Felt [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I noticed the same thing. If I go to Classic home, it shows the video link, but in personalized it still has froogle and groups.

Thomas Hofmann Online [PersonRank 2]

17 years ago #

This for me is only to see with Internet Explorer. Neither Firefox or Opera show this menu.

Greetings, Thomas

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

There is no change in internal search page (default Home page as well!) of Firefox browser.
These pages are localized and contain this language information too:
http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:fi:official

See this part of the URL: 'org.mozilla:fi'
fi = Finland

Is it possible to change this URL without waiting a new 1.5.0.7 version??

Surly Teabag [PersonRank 2]

17 years ago #

I don't much care what Google puts on its homepage, but the alternate searches sitting up there above the search box on my search results page are really useful. If I am searching for something as a "Web" search, I find that I frequently click over to Groups for extra results, or sometimes Images or News or Froogle, depending upon the kind of search.

But a Video search is, for me, still a separate task, that rarely crosses over either way. The popularity of an isolated service is not a good reason for such a change. The issue should be whether it enhances the user experience.

But I'm sure that Google is working on ways of making Video search results more useful. I look forward to the day when Video search results can be formatted like Web search results: once transcripts of video dialogue are available, Google can give a couple of lines of the transcript, with the search terms in bold, and a few images from the video with links to the relevant parts.

Zoolander [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Am I the only one who thinks this is not such a great idea? Having to click twice to go to your other products is not going to help google to gain more traction on these fledging services.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Zoolander: Nope, I'm with you too! ;-)

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/61285.html#id61355

Inferno [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Is that only for the classic homepage. I don't see any change in the Personalized Homepage though.

Anyways the change is not bad I guess.

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

The UK has always been different with the names. There still isn't "Maps" on the homepage.

All this will change soon when Google launch a new design. I can feel it coming!

noah kagan [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

do people prefer to have the videos link instead of groups or froogle? i personally don't care.

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

If user want to go to Groups search, he or she have to click More and then Even more again. This is odd.
Using Froogle is more easier, just pick a More button.

Is the situation really this, is Froogle so popular? Odd.

Mysterius [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Cool! I noticed this yesterday after I thought I accidentally deleted my IE7 cookies, including the one that showed me this design that Google was testing. I subsequently noticed that it was still showing, and on my usual browser (Firefox) and Opera, too. Since I didn't see any news or Forum stuff about it on Google Blogoscoped, though, I assumed it was just me.

I like the new look. And I hope that Google Video will introduce a way to search videos on the web, too, and not just those that are uploaded.

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

At time of writing "More Google products" view at http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ has old look still:

Web Images Groups News Froogle Maps

and 'more' is not hyperlink ;-)

SCJM [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I checked before I went to the doctor, and it was not changed. I just got back and it is changed. My IG homepage reflects this change as well.

I am in Northern California.

Atul [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

1. Similar changes in Gmail page
2. They have not changed the default firefox start page with these changes

gary price [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

However even with video on the home page, I still can't download a new movie or tv show (copyright protected shows) and watch it offline like I can with a bunch of other services like Vongo or CinemaNow.

Btw, as someone who does a lot of Internet search training, it's really interesting (and sad) that non-web search options other than web search go unnoticed and unused. This is not only true for Google but for other engines as well.

Here at Ask we were the first major enngine to place images from our image database (btw, Ask now has it's own image crawl) and place them directly on to web results page if the context of the query suggested it.

http://www.ask.com/web?q=pics+golden+gate+bridge&qsrc=1&o=312&l=dir

Maps, too!
http://www.ask.com/web?q=maps+germany&qsrc=1&o=312&l=dir

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Marissa Mayer : it's official now : http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/some-homepage-revisions.html

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

there is a small change on Google.fr too : on the homepage, the link "directory" (DMOZ) is gone...

Inferno [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Guess what, the 'more...' menu even works on Mobile Opera (the latest one, 8.60). on Nokia 6681

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> If user want to go to Groups search, he or she
> have to click More and then Even more again.
> This is odd.

When I visit Google.com I can see Groups in the "more" box just like Froogle... I don't need to skip to the "even more" page.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

If I understand Marissa right, the key to the redesign was that books and product results are included in web search anyway, so they don't need to be separated (whereas product like Google Video are more explorative and have different search behavior). One smart search to rule them all seems to be the goal...

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I previously said: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/61285.html#id61355

<< That popup / drop down is a pointless IMHO. I've now got to make three clicks to get to any other service from the home page (whereas before it was only two), apart from Books, Froogle or Groups for which I still have to click twice. >>

Well, I've finally realised the advantage of having Books, Froogle and Groups in that popup/dropdown rather than just linking "more" to the "even more" page!

When you enter a search terms, clicking the links in the popup/dropdown will actually search for the terms entered. So, I kinda take back what I said. It's not *entirely* useless, although I'd still prefer to choose which links go where... (I'd also like to see Blog Search somewhere on the home page or in that drop down.)

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<<One smart search to rule them all seems to be the goal...>>

Shouldn't it be? If you type in the search box video U2, I want to see all video's concerning U2 and with that integrated other interesting information like where to buy, textual information on that?

The system should be smart enough to what I want, those clicks are too much.

A bit like Gary tells us, but I think it's a bit too static at the moment, I want to be able to easily scroll through more pictures, etc. But it's already a good start!

Chris McEvoy [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I still prefer "Simply Google"
   http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

My personalized homepage has now updated to show the Video link and the box for more, just like on the classic homepage. Hopefully they change it again or make it customizable in the near future, because I don't find it all that useful.

They have asked (in their official blog post) to submit feedback here: http://google.com/support/bin/request.py which they will try to incorporate in the future.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I still don't understand why this change appears only in English. It must be not so complicated to do that in other languages ;) At least languages where Google video had been translated...

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