MyBlogLog Redesigns the Site: Why Don’t They Follow FriendFeed Pattern?
July 28, 2008 |
Today the rather popular network for bloggers MyBlogLog announces redesign of their website – unfortunately, without any new features or without following the obvious pattern of FriendFeed.
In general it seems to me that the company has decided to stick to changing the design whenever they feel that some improvements are needed. But unfortunately new design does not guarantee popularity for the service. True, the new version of their community widget for blogs drew enough attention to the product back in February and made some bloggers rethink their opinions about displaying the widget so I now see it more often when browsing. But rarely the looks actually make or break companies – and given the dubious decisions like launching the community messaging tool which made many of us spend quite some time opting out of receiving constant messages from the blogs’ communities we belong to, I am under impression that the guys behind MyBlogLog tend to make wrong moves in development. And this one sounds like another move that may not be entirely wrong but is entirely pointless.
The thing is that the redesign is exactly what it is – nothing but a redesign that adds rounded edges and shadows to frame the existing functionality of the site. No new features seem to be added at all – so I don’t really think the announcement is all that exciting, I’d much rather prefer to see some new functionality added or improved instead of having another place to look at the rounded corners (even though I rarely log into the site myself – mostly when I get a notification for someone adding me as a contact).
Where I see MyBlogLog could easily go is in FriendFeed direction. After all, it already aggregates all our services in a single place and after logging in you can instantly see what’s new with your friends as well. But what I don’t see is the ability to leave a comment and initiate a discussion about an item – which really sounds rather obvious to me. I don’t see any reason for MyBlogLog not to focus their efforts on this instead of rolling out a redesign without anything new at all. Admittedly, it is easier said than done – and probably scalability issues could emerge here but at least that could have at least made people log in more frequently to see what’s new and discuss some of the recent events in their friends’ online life. So instead of simply being able to connect on these listed services, bloggers could actually communicate here as well.
The only thing that is actually new is the design of the homepage (that you will be able to access by logging out of your account if you have one). The homepage is now intended to demonstrate the philosophy of the product better using the new catch phrase the company has come up with – “Discover, Broadcast, and Connect” so that newcomers can get an instant better understanding of what they should expect by joining the service.
Unfortunately, existing users are not offered anything particularly new and I still don’t see any reason for visiting the upgraded site more often – I don’t really care about the shiny looks when they are not supported by useful features.
