There’s a few sites I go to for style and other web inspiration, usually www.panic.com‘s clean look is a good place to start, it fits with the way I like things, and they’ve got some very clever whizzy things going on that I’m always happy to see.

Similarly Apple is often a place to go for layout and ideas, they have great graphics people making their site look very exciting, not to mention making their products look that much more shiny than the next brand.

So I was a bit surprised when I came across the following site (ASCII art from the page source)

    .                                 .o8       oooo
  .o8                                "888       `888
 .o888oo oooo  oooo  ooo. .oo.  .oo.   888oooo.   888  oooo d8b
   888   `888  `888  `888P"Y88bP"Y88b  d88' `88b  888  `888""8P
   888    888   888   888   888   888  888   888  888   888
   888 .  888   888   888   888   888  888   888  888   888    .o.
   "888"  `V88V"V8P' o888o o888o o888o `Y8bod8P' o888o d888b   Y8P

I can’t say that I expected to see a blogging tool with as much sexy cool as this one has on it’s front page, but I must say I’m interested enough to sign up and see if it continues inside. (you win again clever marketing design people!! *shakes fist at internet)

There’s another site that I came across recently that’s got some of those same whooshy bits going on, check out www.alfredapp.com.

I think it’s fairly natural to be excited by something new, the aesthetic of the internet is constantly changing and no doubt what seemed new last year either looks familiar by now, or tired. What was the big problem with the facebook changes? I think most people have forgotten them by now. These things are more and more shaping our lives so we should pay them the attention they deserve.