Airbnb launches their new look website

Amid some controversey that Airbnb is now actively promoting promiscuity among landlords and their temporary tenants, though among this is a great new website. 

Hat's (and underwear) off.

 

The seamless facebook login.

The facebook integration is the best I have ever seen. It knew I was logged in in another tab (like almost everyone is) and it automatically passed the login through. It looks like I have an account without actually creating one. If you go into the account section you then have to agree to terms and conditions. This adds a level of personalisation without even doing anything. I like it!

 

The video integration on the home page.

When it comes to engaging content nothing does it better than an infographic or an immersive auto-play video. The new look site uses HTML5 native video support to display videos from around the world. When you are dealing with beautiful scenes such as the below why now flaunt them on page load.

 

The description of the new look

When big sites such as this go through a re-design why not tell everyone why you did it. They promoted it on the home page which links to a detailed blog on the new design. http://blog.airbnb.com/belong-anywhere

There is a feature video on their of the founders. The video is shot in the first room that was ever rented out on Airbnb.

 

The theme of the site is friendship.

They tell a story of the London riots and a man who is a host on the site. When the London riots broke out he was contacted by 7 of the previous Airbnb guests to make sure he is ok. The point of the story is that he was contacted by these people (before his own mother) that he was connected to through Airbnb.

 

The controversy of the new logo.

There has been a number of articles written about the new look logo. It has been said to represent a male's…private parts…and said to encourage promiscuous behaviour. There has been a number of blogs created around this theme, I have found the most G rated one I could find to feature below:

The logo is called called the Belo. The founder and CEO says "It's an iconic mark for our windows, our doors, and our shared values, it's a symbol that, like us, can belong wherever it happens to be." Sounds innocent enough to me.

 

The site is not responsive.

The Airbnb is not responsive and nor should it be. As we know we browse sites \differently depending on the device and by making two separate sites it gives the site more flexibility than a responsive site could. It does appear they are using an m. domain but it is masked in the URL. See below comparison of the search results page on desktop vs tablet.

 

The site looks great and I can only imagine how much time and effort her gone into creating it. It is a big move launching a whole site re-design in one go. I hope they are A/B testing it but it doesn't appear that they are.