I came across this post on reveries magazine today that made me stop to think a little. Perhaps not a very coherent or thorough thought, but I’m sharing it nonetheless.
Today’s Cool News of the Day post titled: Wow v. Oh, describes how google engineers set about trying to come up with things that are new and different, that makes people say “wow”. This, I have to admit, has happened to me using some of google’s apps. Whereas, Yahoo tries to create new features within the context of its existing offerings, trying not to create ‘orphans’ of new applications.
The post describes how both companies are attempting to become more like each other, one trying to get engineers to develop integrated add-ons, and the other trying to emulate a fast-moving, innovative company.
CCTV Headquarters by OMA, Koolhaas
This made me think of OMA’s new headquarters for Central Chinese Television, which to me looks “wow” from the outside – but concerns me that it might not carry through that throughout the inside of the building. Inside it might be more of an ‘oh, okay’ kind of response. Google’s wow-ness in it’s applications definitely is short lived, when I find that much of the initial experience is about all there is to see. Not to be horrible, but it’s just that there’s not a lot more to the stand-alone app, like Calendar, than meets the eye. For me, Google and all the apps, feels a little like Adobe illustrator and Photoshop before ’93 – they might as well have been completely separate companies.
Whereas Yahoo’s chess game seems to reveal that it has all of it’s pieces moving in sync with each other. Now I don’t work for Yahoo – and this really isn’t a Yahoo-appreciation blog – but the Mail beta app continued to wow me for some time. I constantly discovered features that delighted me and worked the way I expected. Unfortunately the ‘wow this is slow’ took over and I moved on.
Now all this wraps up with a lingering thought that I had while reading this, and which won’t leave me since reading a preview copy of Dan Saffer’s new book: Are engineers designers?
I considered an observed difference between Yahoo + Google, the so-called Pepsi & Coke of our new media space, which is that Google seems to celebrate it’s engineers who invent and develop the new applications, whereas Yahoo celebrates (or buys) it’s designers and teams who invent and build their products.
So I wonder who has the better chance of sustaining a ‘wow’ both on the inside and out, and who has more work to do in becoming that? I know Google has designers, I’ve met a couple, but I know of a lot more designers at Yahoo and wonder how much the DNA of a team at either of the companies has to do with their product innovation and design?
In other news – we’re going to be posting our review of Dan Saffer’s new book: Designing for Interactions: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, that was recently published by New Riders. Hopefully within the next few days, and I’ll be sure to expand on what it was he said that inspired this post.