Page shows Google.com may get makeover

ITworld.com - "Some Web users are reporting seeing a reformatted Google Inc. results page that has the links to specialized search pages listed in the left-hand column instead of placed horizontally across the top of the search box."

It appears that Google has become a high visibility example for people to point at as a usability leader. It will be interesting to see how they handle the addition of complexity and services. They have yet to really tie in some of the peripheral services like Videos tightly into the fold. Remember when amazon.com used to be king of the UI - able to fit all its departments on a single line of tabs. Then we got to watch it outgrow the tab metaphor in a rather clumsy way, and today their use of tabs seems like a very user-unfriendly clinging to the past.