What Do You Get When You Ask Gmail Fans To Express Email Delivery?

Google asked the question, and found out:

Google received over 1,100 submissions for the collaborative effort.

It reminds me a little bit of Ze Frank’s (what ever happened to him BTW?) Video for Ray project earlier this year. The exercise just goes to prove that tapping into passionate users can deliver; over 1,000 people world wide took time out to video and upload their love of Gmail, with no incentive to do so other than perhaps a 2 second chance of fame. Cheap labor perhaps, but it’s a resource that can and is being tapped.

Microsoft Tafiti Is Beautiful, But Will Anyone Use it?

We’re pretty big fans of Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform. And just about everyone will agree that Tafiti, a new Microsoft search site built on Silverlight, is pretty darn easy on the eyes. They even got the Jackson Fish Market team (they are creating new visually stunning products) to help out on the project.

But will many people use it? It still uses Microsoft search, which in my opinion is not as relevant as Google or Yahoo. And the site, while pretty, runs very slow.

I think people want fast results served on a clean white page with as little clutter as possible (example). Bells, whistles and pretty graphics are fine, but functionality rules.

That being said, Microsoft isn’t out there claiming that this is their new search paradigm. It’s an experiment to show the power of Silverlight, and at that it succeeds.