Google, Bing, and the new Caffeine

In Google's ever continuing quest for simplicity, I think the following home pages can tell volumes.

Here is Google's current home page, before doing a mouse over.



And Google's new update, called Caffeine based on the hack I found at Taranfx. Keep in mind, the fade in effect will probably start after the update takes effect for all data centers. Notice no shadow, and no gray buttons. The search bar looks a little bigger too. It reminds me of a comment someone made at the Xconomy forum in Seattle this past Monday, December 2: Google looks like Russia in the 1940s.

Here is Bing's showing for today:

Harry Shum, Corporate Vice President of Search Product Development at Microsoft spoke at the Xconomy forum. He said that while Google tries to get users off the search page as fast as possible and on to the information they are looking for, Bing tries to help users explore so they can "Bing and Decide." While I like that argument, because there is so much that can be done in search that users miss out on, and I think the new Caffeine interface will help give users more options, I don't think the Baboon was what Shum was talking about.