Ananzi’s new look and feel
Check out Ananzi's new look and feel: So fresh and so clean over at BizCommunity.
Laugh at the marketing spew. Laugh at the priceless before and after comparison! Gasp for a breath of air, and then laugh some more at the rest of the marketing spew. Honestly, every time I read about Ananzi's efforts I have to wonder why they even bother.
a fresher, less cluttered and more cutting-edge homepage
How is replacing bright yellows with grays (sic) and whites "fresher"? And I want to vomit when I see the superficial phrase "cutting-edge", whether it's use is deserved or not - and if it were, you shouldn't be the judge to make that call. Using it to describe your design implies you had no clear objectives or goals in mind, if "cutting-edge" is the most appropriate way you can conceive to describe the result.
The new Ananzi homepage, with the striking logo which stands out more so than before, consists of a myriad of value-added features including a sophisticated search bar, a condensed navigation bar and personalised info options.
Do you mean the logo (it's not particularly striking) stands out above the 5 flashing banner ads surrounding it (make that six, including the inline popup and excluding the pop-under window), or from the new gray and white colour scheme?
A sophisticated search bar? Maybe if it used AJAX technology to update dynamically, it would be sophisticated. Maybe if it didn't reload a new page in an iframe each time you choose a section, while forcing vertical and horizontal scrollbars at random, it would be sophisticated.
The backend running this site must be frightfully ugly. Notice how the "News" item in the "sophisticated" search bar occasionally falls out of vertical alignment with the rest of the items as you click through them. I'm guessing that list of items is unique to each page.. what a maintenance nightmare!
But fear not, for I have the answer that will solve all of these issues. Ananzi's new URL as of now is http://ananzi.co.za/searchbar/. Aaah, so fresh and clean and clutter-free. Sharp lines. Love the white space.
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10 Comments
I cannot agree more! You’ve hit the nail on its head. When I saw the article submitted by you on Muti this morning I honestly thought that you were losing your nuts! Clearly, they have written the advertorial themselves.
So what? They penetrated the Web2.0 front in South Africa?! That would have been news-worthy. Changing yellow to gray, thats just LAME. It still looks like a christmas tree. It looks as if their web designer showed up for the party, but their developer didn’t pitch. Therefore only the colors changed.
From a developer perspective, I smile at how the links in the Ananzi Services sidebar is all PERL scripts with query strings, the categories in the main section is all SEF (http://ananzi.co.za/catalog/ArtsandCulture/index.html) and the links at the bottom of the page is a mix and match of .html and .htm and GKWE. Sloppy to say the least.
I continue to say that Ananzi could be a Web2.0 leader on the South African front, if only they wanted to be and weren’t so damn clueless and cheap…
I agree entirely! As for the ‘cutting-edge’ claims, I’d have a quiet word with their PR company/person. I especially like the new URL you have for them :) Now that’s cutting (out the crap) edge.
Gotta love this shit we call the “press release”.
The search link is classic…. that’s all they had to do… what is a point of a search engine that spends most of it’s time finding it’self… but then again i don’t use anazi…
But for you to put the link up, is classic… nice one!
Word.
Ananzi is worthless. Their search results are easy to minipulate in weeks, its just a classic case of right place at the right time for them.. Niche.
They will eventually fade..
Yes, it’s true – we did change from yellow to grey. And yes, we did use the adjective ‘cutting-edge†in our press release, which we did write ourselves. Shot for finding the search bar though! Your noddy badges are in the mail :)
Ananzi: Oh, come on, restating the obvious is your best response? Your reply comes a month late though, did your engine only index my blog post now? :P
Not sure if you have seen this? http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/23/17822.html
Joey: I read it earlier this week and had a bit of a chuckle. Scott blogged it this time around.
It’s sad though to see what has become of the once dominant Ananzi brand. And I find it really strange how they blindly continue to persist with their pointless redesign efforts in the hope that it will rescue them, when clearly they have bigger issues to solve. They offer no value to today’s web user and their declining visitorship proves that.
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07 March 2007
Ottie06:25 am
I’m really enjoying your website! Great article, had a good laugh. I like your solution to all of Ananzi’s design woes (to put it mildly); it’s perfect!