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The strangest Fortune 500 website, ever

January 22, 2008 · 1 Comment

I was clicking around on Fortune 500 websites yesterday and I came across this little gem.

 

You better believe it, I’m a Fortune 500 website!

Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, website has an extremely interesting design.

As you can see, it is a very simple hyperlink-based website – very 1995.

I am in two minds about this website. The website is very simple to use, very easy to navigate and the user can determine the content of the entire site at one glance.

On the other hand, the website looks cheap. It doesn’t look like the site of one of the biggest companies in the world. It actually had me guessing for a short period of time, wondering whether it was for real.

Doubting the integrity of a website could force a user into going elsewhere. Maybe this doesn’t matter for Warren, but it would matter for other companies.

Oh, by the way, original links are in purple, not blue – it looks like I’ve visited all of those links before, but in actuality I’ve only visited the first one (in red.) The descriptions are written in a very small font and the Geico advertisement at the bottom is another thing I wouldn’t expect on a Fortune 500 website (although Geico is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.)

Love it or hate it, I do believe that many people will think this is most odd.

Categories: Design · Usability
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1 response so far ↓

  • Victor // February 6, 2008 at 12:12 am

    This website reflects Buffet’s philosophy. Not spending money unless necessary. No glossy annual reports with pretty pictures. Same with the website.

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