The content of this blog is certainly applicable to international audiences, but Cleartrip as a product works for Indian audiences. I didn't reply correctly to that comment about the user who is wondering why are prices between a european city and a city in china is so high. I should have explained it more clearly.
I couldn't agree more about Google sticking up for what's best for Google. And while I don't agree that we need more government regulation and intervention, we do need to call Google on their BS.
It gets even funnier if you read between the lines on their "take action" page and translate.
Original: "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet."
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Translated: "Google's revenues depend on a free and open Internet where we can freely monetize content created by everyone else."
Original: "Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech — or even allow them to cut off Internet access. Other proposals would require services like YouTube, Facebook, and Skype to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders. This could limit access to information — particularly in emerging markets."
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Translated: "Who are these governments to censor what appears on the Internet? Only Google and our hand-tuned animal-named algorithms have the right to determine what people see and don't see. And how dare anyone but Google attempt to impose tolls on the Internet? Shocking, the audacity of these governments..."
Original: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future."
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Translated: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future. That privilege belongs to Google alone."
Original: "The ITU is also secretive. The treaty conference and proposals are confidential."
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Translated: "Only Google is allowed to be secretive. Everyone else must be open."
@nerd_in_rage -- we originally started with purely text as an approach. You can see one of our older blog posts here where we talk about the simplicity and clarity afforded by "Just use text":
http://blog.cleartrip.com/2007/03/10/a-picture-says-a-thousa...
Over time, however, we changed our minds a little bit. And we were driven, in no small part, by the rapid shift to web consumption on post-PC devices. We explained our thinking in another blog post:
MaxGabriel -- this is a bit of a subjective choice. We chose to go with the "bed" approach over the "building(s)" approach for two reasons:
1. We think the extensive usage of the original bed icon in wayfinding signage around the world makes it something that most users have already "learned". Most people take that icon to be representative of hotels since they've already seen it so many times.
2. We debated the building approach, but we thought it may get confused with the "home" icon. And we didn't want to use icon+text in our design at this stage. We think the buildings approach gets even more confusing without a text label.
As I said, however, it's a bit of a subjective choice...
We hope that it's a clearer bed than what we originally started with.
With respect to seeing it from afar -- the contexts in which we are using the icon is for desktop and post-PC device user interfaces. Interfaces which aren't usually used from afar. Most users who are exposed to this icon will be looking at it from just two to three feet away.
