I am not really a fan of the pastel colors and the new logo. I know they were trying to make photos and such more prominent but I find it harder to navigate.
However, is it just me, or do the videos in the mantle not really add much? I find the movement in some of them distract from the space itself, while others just seem a little staged or even a bit creepy. I think I would have much preferred photos.
As a counter-point, the videos were my favorite part but I agree some of them look a little too staged. Possibly blurring them a bit or adding a slightly translucent overlay as another poster suggested could make them less distracting and increase the prominence of the white text overlay.
Just don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
I agree, but I could see (for example) my parents trusting the new design more. It seems more like a legitimate short term rental service rather than a couchsurfing site.
I can't say I really believe in Airbnb as a company and idea, but that is a damn well designed website -- I guess you could say the best money could buy..
What the company is doing is essentially illegal. You can't rent out a living space without applying for rezoning, and then it still has to be with the approval of the city planning department of the city. You can't just let people turn their places into rentals. I live in a large city, and I would mostly agree that city planning in necessary in order to avoid problems with traffic, parking, and all the other problems that happen in dense urban areas.
I think the idea is great, but it's not going to work, maybe in a more relaxed country where they don't care to do any city planning, but not in the United States and other more densely populated cities.
I live in Singapore, where Airbnb will remain illegal for a long time. That said, is "that's illegal!"necessarily watertight proof that something isn't going to work? Could it be possible that people might like the idea of something enough that cultural attitudes change, and people demand different things, and laws shift and change to accomodate what people want?
The thing is, the reasons why Airbnb is illegal (e.g. the zoning laws that the parent mentioned) aren't really subject to shifts in cultural attitudes. It boils down to city planning and structuring (the flow of traffic, the layout of utilities, etc.), all (or at least most) of which are put in place to try and make our horribly inefficient cities just a bit more efficient.
What is so well-designed about the site? I'm no designer and I am not being cynical - I'm genuinely curious because, to me, the site is very similar to many others I have seen today. It's possible I don't have an eye for the details here, but I really don't see a huge difference.
Well. The moving picture at the top, the Masonry image layout. It all really fits well together to convey what airbnb does -- and it really makes you want to connect with them. Airbnb is no doubt a very well funded company.
The second one you mention is also very well designed I'd say, but as you can see, it's a professional web design firm -- so it should look very well -- and as you can see it uses very similar techniques as airbnb.
I can't say I really believe in Airbnb as a company and idea, but that is a damn well designed website -- I guess you could say the best money could buy..
Not a critique of the design overall, but if someone responsible for the home page design is reading this: it might be worth applying a slight translucent layer over the background images/videos to help make the white text more readable (something like (0,0,0,0.4)!
I think because the background is such a long, varied animation, it works as-is. None of the letters are unreadable for more than a moment, and only occasionally do small portions become unreadable. The exception, I think, is the Signup|Login|Help navigation section in the top-right. Sometimes whole links become unreadable for like 5 seconds!
I just saw the event they had, and while extremely awkward and painful to watch, they continually eluded to a broader concept bigger than "renting rooms."
I think this was a well thought out rebranding, especially seeing as they are becoming a larger global brand, and their identity needed to reflect that as well.
The site is beautiful, the new logo is simple yet unique and fits their brand well, and I personally cannot wait to use their services next year for my trip through Europe.
Yeah, I thought they were going to do something meaningful, like waiting at least a minute to forget the dates I've already entered at least a dozen times.
Yeah, OK, why do we? I agree. It's silly. Does the rest of America agree? No.
Given that this is part of AirBnb transforming to a consumer brand you'd think they'd pay more attention to what their target consumers think. They're a business, after all.
Actually, brand perception usually works in the reverse order of the uphtread description, where negative reaction to branding prevents consideration of the other qualities of the product rather than be considered as a factor of discussion after consideration of those qualities.
I think you might be projecting with the "demonizing," but it seems obvious that it would serve to limit your audience. You can look at an obvious extreme example for plenty of thought-experiments: do porn companies use sexualized iconography?
I appear to be the only one who thinks it looks like an "A". The loop reminds me of something an airplane would do in the air. I can see the sexual resemblance, but only if I concentrate hard enough on it, then it just goes back to being an "A".
Hmmm. I'd love to see some data around this. (I don't mean this as snakily as it sounds, surveying some folks about this would make a good blog post, it's sort of an interesting lesson either way).
Except, the proportions make Automation's look like a clothespin, and AirBNB's like.... well, a vagina now that someone has pointed it out to me, but that definitely wasn't my first impression.
"Looks like a vulva" would be a more accurate description. /pedantry off
On the other hand, the oldest surviving human art on at least two continents is crude drawings (cruder than the Airbnb logo) of vulvae, so the artistic impulse in this cases is about as old as humankind. (I will be no more willing to rent a room through Airbnb than I was before after seeing today's discussion, and I wasn't very willing before, knowing someone whose reservation was cancelled at the last minute.)
I love the new site. I was never a fan of the old one because I felt overwhelmed with all the information on the screen. This feels cleaner, more minimalist.
One gripe I have with the new site is the fixed booking form on the right side of the screen as you scroll through a listing. I find it really distracting (perhaps that's the point?). Because of the fixed form on the right, there's also a lot of wasted space in the column. I dunno, maybe I'll get used to this over time.
Frankly I did not see this coming [0], I always figured Airbnb would aim to be a universal marketplace, rather than carving out a niche in "authentic", "unique", "truly amazing experiences".
Anyhow, I read "belonging" as a coded word for "community", and wonder how Airbnb thinks they are going to culture their own community...
Maybe they will make a strategic acquisition? Lonely Planet, for example.
Or maybe they will bleed some of their profits into a virtual currency / karma that folks can earn, trade, and apply toward accommodations? Airbnb could tweak the karma economy to maximize profits while still infusing enough karma to bootstrap their community.
Well, unique and amazing experiences will probably cause them fewer legal issues for Airbnb over the long-term. As opposed to being a universal marketplace where people aren't necessarily abiding by their own leases.
They are valued at $10 billion. They don't have $10 billion. If NYC or SF decided to crackdown harder on Airbnb hosts, then that valuation would drop.
However, if they can move into the slightly more predictable (and defensible) position of providing unique getaways, then they would be in a better position for when that inevitable crackdown does occur.
Another thing that might affect their valuation is whether or not investors believe Airbnb may grow to serve a universal market or just a niche market.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive (see PG's essay about narrow and deep, applied to Google, to Microsoft, etc.)- I also remember reading an early Facebook employee's note about how Facebook had to start out serving college students specifically before they could go on to serve everybody, and how if they had tried to serve everybody from the start, they'd probably have failed.
It may be that the path to universality is paved with niches. You can't write a book about everything. You write a book about something, and people see everything in it.
Airbnb probably needs to stay sexy/cool for as long as they can before they become the big/unsexy/bureaucratic administrator/utility providor.
>Anyhow, I read "belonging" as a coded word for "community", and wonder how Airbnb thinks they are going to culture their own community...
Yeah, I need a new "community" like I need a hole in my head. Not everything I do needs to be social. I love AirBNB because I can rent something with the amenities of a house wherever I'm going to go. I have no interest in socializing with the owners of that house. I don't care if that's how other people want to go, but if the main focus of AirBNB is going to be on how fun it is to sleep in a stranger's house and then have breakfast with them, I can't imagine that it'll be something I'm interested in.
For so long, people thought Airbnb was about renting houses. But really, we’re about home. You see, a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong.
I hope they didn't pay very much for this, it's nauseating.
Don Draper is a fictional character. The reason they used home is to increase auxiliary market share such as home cleaning, key exchange, food delivery, etc services.
It doesn't have to be, it's a mascot, which in my experience means it will be an officehold word. Also, since it has a name, I'd say the smart money would be to look for it to play a role in future marketing and advertising collateral.
I recently used AirBnB for the first time, and I gotta say I agree with the sentiment here and I think calling it nauseating is excessively negative.
When I woke up on my first night in AirBnb I thought I was in my apartment for a moment. It felt like home. This was a great feeling-- here I am in the middle of a foreign land where I know nothing and don't speak the language, but when I go back to my place at the end of the night I feel at home.
Think of how many meaningful connections you could make if you charged below market rate for lodging in high demand areas. Until now I thought airbnb was about making money for themselves and their hosts, but now I see it's about connecting the world through meaningful experiences and the money is almost not even a factor! Amazing!
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[ 144 ms ] story [ 3359 ms ] threadHowever, is it just me, or do the videos in the mantle not really add much? I find the movement in some of them distract from the space itself, while others just seem a little staged or even a bit creepy. I think I would have much preferred photos.
Just don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
IMO the design process seems way over the top, but it seems to have produced results.
I think the idea is great, but it's not going to work, maybe in a more relaxed country where they don't care to do any city planning, but not in the United States and other more densely populated cities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/nyregion/the-airbnb-econom...
Ex. http://electricpulp.com/ http://spigotdesign.com/ ...
The second one you mention is also very well designed I'd say, but as you can see, it's a professional web design firm -- so it should look very well -- and as you can see it uses very similar techniques as airbnb.
I just saw the event they had, and while extremely awkward and painful to watch, they continually eluded to a broader concept bigger than "renting rooms."
The site is beautiful, the new logo is simple yet unique and fits their brand well, and I personally cannot wait to use their services next year for my trip through Europe.
what I don't understand is why the hell they moved the most important element in their site down to a secondary place ("the search").
Since nobody else on HN has mentioned it, all of twitter thinks the new logo looks like a vagina. It's hard to unsee.
Given that this is part of AirBnb transforming to a consumer brand you'd think they'd pay more attention to what their target consumers think. They're a business, after all.
"OMG, no, no we can't. The logo looks like a vagina."
Nobody actually thinks this way, but I think it's been demonstrated countless times that people respond to branding.
I guess the takeaway is that just because it's possible to make something sound silly doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact.
Who cares?
Remember all the iPad jokes about sanitary products when it was announced?
That obviously didn't hurt the now multi-billion dollar giant the iPad has become.
Just because the device sells doesn't mean the name isn't bad.
On the other hand, the oldest surviving human art on at least two continents is crude drawings (cruder than the Airbnb logo) of vulvae, so the artistic impulse in this cases is about as old as humankind. (I will be no more willing to rent a room through Airbnb than I was before after seeing today's discussion, and I wasn't very willing before, knowing someone whose reservation was cancelled at the last minute.)
http://www.underware.nl/fonts/bello/preface
One gripe I have with the new site is the fixed booking form on the right side of the screen as you scroll through a listing. I find it really distracting (perhaps that's the point?). Because of the fixed form on the right, there's also a lot of wasted space in the column. I dunno, maybe I'll get used to this over time.
"Look, honey! The Bélo! We've found a safe-house!"
Overall I like the logo, but the idea of something akin to the Hobo Code in particular is pretty brilliant IMHO. It's a very Don Draper idea :)
1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1097128/
Anyhow, I read "belonging" as a coded word for "community", and wonder how Airbnb thinks they are going to culture their own community...
Maybe they will make a strategic acquisition? Lonely Planet, for example.
Or maybe they will bleed some of their profits into a virtual currency / karma that folks can earn, trade, and apply toward accommodations? Airbnb could tweak the karma economy to maximize profits while still infusing enough karma to bootstrap their community.
[0] http://blog.airbnb.com/belong-anywhere
However, if they can move into the slightly more predictable (and defensible) position of providing unique getaways, then they would be in a better position for when that inevitable crackdown does occur.
It may be that the path to universality is paved with niches. You can't write a book about everything. You write a book about something, and people see everything in it.
Airbnb probably needs to stay sexy/cool for as long as they can before they become the big/unsexy/bureaucratic administrator/utility providor.
(Sorry for length.)
Yeah, I need a new "community" like I need a hole in my head. Not everything I do needs to be social. I love AirBNB because I can rent something with the amenities of a house wherever I'm going to go. I have no interest in socializing with the owners of that house. I don't care if that's how other people want to go, but if the main focus of AirBNB is going to be on how fun it is to sleep in a stranger's house and then have breakfast with them, I can't imagine that it'll be something I'm interested in.
I hope they didn't pay very much for this, it's nauseating.
When I woke up on my first night in AirBnb I thought I was in my apartment for a moment. It felt like home. This was a great feeling-- here I am in the middle of a foreign land where I know nothing and don't speak the language, but when I go back to my place at the end of the night I feel at home.