Hence I don't see such big differences between Apple and Microsoft's
homepages. Different resources, different strategies in the same market (or
almost the same market, different sectors). Microsoft projects the image of
multiplicity, comprehensiveness, orderliness, with only a small token nod
to impractical humanity. Apple projects simplicity, sufficiency. I would
not bet on Apple in the market as currently defined. Microsoft is oriented
to the corporate habitus, but what is Apple oriented to? they have not well
enough defined a niche, I'd say. (I am speaking only of the website; this
is less true of their recent ad campaign, and much less true of the new
iMac design ...)
If you want to see really big differences between two otherwise comparable
'personal' websites, look at Edouard's and Eva's, both recently
(re-)announced here. It would not be polite for me to analyze the identity
issues I see in these sites, or characterize the differences of style,
habitus, functional priorities, etc. I will not say a word about gender.
But I think it's well worth having a look at both.
Maybe I will go this far: Edouard, rather explicitly, is seeking profits of
distinction within well-defined and hegemonic markets; Eva is somewhat
subverting those markets' conventions, though making innovative use of the
conventions of other markets/fields (art, children's book illustrations).
Neither takes their approach to the extreme, each has some features that
are more used by the other.
I don't intend to start a discussion comparing these two websites; it would
be too much like comparing two friends publicly ... insensitive and in bad
taste. But I do think that there is a great deal to be learned by such
comparisons. Maybe someone can offer a pair of more institutional sites
that they feel show some of the same sorts of contrasts (without explaining
just what those are for the moment)? and then we might discuss a bit of the
heteropraxia of website design.
Gingerly, JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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