Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I just came across an example of mixed-language adsense ads on one of my blogs, in which both English and Korean appeared:

It doesn’t make 100% sense to me, because I can’t read Korean. My browser sends an “en-us” language header, so why doesn’t Google’s server base their ads off that?

Digg just launched a redesign. They’ve got new topics, like Technology, Science, World & Business, Videos, Entertainment, and Gaming. They’ve got a new design that shows both the dugg stories and the stories in the queue on the same page:

Their new adsense ads are a bit interesting, too:

Note the prominent green color! What bothers me, though, is that the new layout is too heavy. Now it’s just a tech news site, it’s an everything news site. There’s a bar on the left to filter information, tabs on the right, tabs on the top, friends on the left. It’s like Digg just asked the question, “Where can we fit all our features in” and placed them haphazardly everywhere.

One good feature, though, is their new “bury a story” interface, where the stories you report turn grey in front of your eyes, and become one with the background:

I’ve only just started playing with the new Digg, so that concludes my review and first impressions for now. Go try it yourself, leave some comments!

The Google power trio of design colors–blue, green, and black–appear to have been integrated into the Bloglines “add a blog” interface. Here’s a screenshot of the Bloglines feed selection page:

Now, compare this to a default Google ad, in their Adsense preview:

To me it’s quite obvious that Bloglines, the Web 2.0 darling which enabled users everywhere to hook into RSS, is deliberately trying to copy Google’s clean colors and interface. Before, their “choose a feed” page was drab, bland, and undistinguished. Now, it’s sharp and classy; but it looks like Google.

Because I haven’t done this in a while, and it’s technically interesting, here’s the digg link. Digg it if it’s good; what I want is to see whether anyone’s seen the piracy of the Google colors anywhere else.