Amazon has a new look and feel. They’re running out of space for all the tabs.

it seems like they don't have the bugs worked out -- one day the 'new look' will be up and the next, the old look. the new look, especially the tabs, has an icky msn hotmail spin-off flavor to me. must be the gradient on the powder blue they have in common...

Kinsley, thanks for the link to Doc Searls' presentation: Bringing up the difference in choices of self-description between the false perception of being solely consumers when we are actually producers/authors in an ongoing place - the web - that Big Business has no control over. An Autonomous Zone, to use Hakim Bey's phrase. I appreciate that Quipsology.....

Interesting the polar opposite directions that Amazon and Puma are heading with their web interfaces.

(That Puma site is one of the worst web interfaces I've seen in a long time. The concept was 'cool' for 5 minutes back in 1999...)

Darrel, I don't know what they were thinking. (Puma, that is.) Why immitate print on the web?

The first time I saw the "page-turning" concept I though WTF? It's the web not print and it doesn't work and you don't in any way benefit from it. Why would you implement this concept? You would think the trend would have died by now, but I guess some execs at Puma have been living under a rock.

Why immitate print on the web?

I'm trying to picture the concept pitch...

AD: 'see, it's just like reading magazine in the bathroom!

Client: So, you suggesting that we print a magazine?

AD: No, no, no. WAY to predictable. I propose the Virtual Bathroom!

Client: Uh...OK...

AD: Virtual reality, baby! It's the future! We're going to perfectly emulate the sitting-on-the-can reading experience ONLINE! It's GENIOUS!

Cleint: Uh...OK...we're paying you big bucks for these ideas, right?

AD: Trust me...

Mark, I love The Gutter ... even though I haven't the faintest what they're talking about half the time.

Jason, thanks for that sIFR info. Wow ... both on the implementation and the process. And we thought programmers didn't care about typography.

As for the Puma online, it gave me the opportunity to feel like a guy ... I used the pinching fingers to ... um ... pinch body parts. (Bathroom confessions!)

please forgive my stupidity, but this Puma, is it the shoe company? the one with the "hello" ad campaign? because I've been looking all over puma.com & I can't find any pinching fingers or virtual pages to turn. Help.

I think Puma mut have caught the late 90's bug a little late, and not just in their website. Their new tags on their clothing just reek of the 90's with their cocky poising (something along the lines of "Yeah, you're cool, you just bought clothing that expresses your hip, urban attitude. You know a good thing when you see it." I kid you not.) and a multitude of self-congratulations.

I'm really wondering if they're just playing a huge joke on us all. Either that or they have hired the worst ad agency ever.

Jeff, yes. It's Puma shoes.

http://www.puma.com/ecat/pindex.jsp?source=ss05ecat

Puma Shoes:

I suppose someone thought is was a 'fun' way to present the catalog -- though the book and page flip concept is a bit worn by now. A good user experience it's not. Slow, buggy and completely unneccessary. Must have taken me a good 30 seconds just to flip the first page. Yikes.

Never having my browser full screen, the actionscript wouldn't allow my mouse to change back to a pointer to scroll horizontal when I went below the visible screen in the browser to grab the browser scroll bar -- had no idea where my mouse was at that point....

thanks, Jason.

Have I seen a more annoying navigation system? possibly not.

Their new bike is nice though.

the new Amazon thing is another thing I'm missing out on. I saw some screenshots on somebody's blog last week, but it always shows up the old way when I go there.

re: the Amazon thing. Amazon often does random testing of new interfaces. So, you don't always see the new interface. My guess is that it's more of a blind study...Monitoring clickthroughs with interface a vs. interface b.

> Kinsley, thanks for the link to Doc Searls' presentation

No problem Peky ;)

A propos to the presentation, given in Paris at a conference known as "Les Blogs": L'Academie Francais has determined what blogs are in French. From now on, they are to be called les bloc-notes which translates to note pad. The short version is le bloc.

If Wittgenstein was French, perhaps L'Academie would follow his dictum "the meaning is the use", because even Le Monde calls them blogs.