New Blog Network Layout: Zephyr
You might have noticed that the main page of this domain just got a facelift. If not, I heartily suggest you go check it out. I spent the last 2 days whipping it up, and while it’s not 100% awesome, and has too much ad filler in the left column, it’s way better than the old theme. Allow me to present, Zephyr:
It features asides randomly pulled from across the network and pasted into the top bar, making sure, of course, not to let them clip off the edges, a blue color scheme, a large header logo, a number of informative pages, advertising space, a featured blog area, and a list of all our blog properties! I’m not by any means a web designer, so if you can leave suggestions in the comments, go for it!
New Wordpress Theme Viewer
If you’ve ever had trouble finding the perfect Wordpress theme, the guys at Wordpress have come up with an official theme viewer. It’s a lot prettier than the other’s I’ve seen:
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to mention the competition:
Of course, both of these are old, limited, and very out of date. The refreshing update to the Wordpress theme viewer lets you sort by date, popularity, or quality. You can also look for themes of a particular color of style. However, the site appears to be having trouble with the user submission process, getting duplicated and possibly worse. A good authentication system would go a long way here.
Bloglines Copies Google
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.