Who is Using Ajax ?
According to Alexa, the top international web brands are Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, MySpace, EBay, YouTube, Amazon, Wikipedia and the BBC. These 8 brands own the top 13 websites by page views. None of these sites is JavaScript-free. The BBC, EBay, Wikipedia and MySpace all take a “Progressive Enhancement” approach (create a JavaScript free site first then add tweaks). This approach is good for large sites that wish to “keep-up” but are not looking to the user interface to drive additional value to the site. It is rumoured that MySpace are planning a UI rewrite that will make much heavier use of Ajax. Amazon uses this approach for it ratings widget throughout its main site and for its A9 search site. Microsoft uses this approach on its home page, and Google for Google News. The “Second Site” approach means creating a JavaScript based site first and then porting it to work with scripting turned off. It is generally a better way to achieve a rich site since it treats the majority case firs
Google is making a huge investment in developing the Ajax approach. All of the major products Google has introduced over the last year — Orkut, Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups, Google Suggest, and Google Maps — are Ajax applications. (For more on the technical nuts and bolts of these Ajax implementations, check out these excellent analyses of Gmail, Google Suggest, and Google Maps.) Others are following suit: many of the features that people love in Flickr depend on Ajax, and Amazon’s A9.com search engine applies similar techniques. These projects demonstrate that Ajax is not only technically sound, but also practical for real-world applications. This isn’t another technology that only works in a laboratory. And Ajax applications can be any size, from the very simple, single-function Google Suggest to the very complex and sophisticated Google Maps.
Google is making a huge investment in developing the Ajax approach. All of the major products Google has introduced over the last year — Orkut, Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups, Google Suggest, and Google Maps — are Ajax applications. (For more on the technical nuts and bolts of these Ajax implementations, check out these excellent analyses of Gmail, Google Suggest, and Google Maps.) Others are following suit: many of the features that people love in Flickr depend on Ajax, and Amazon’s A9.com search engine applies similar techniques. These projects demonstrate that Ajax is not only technically sound, but also practical for real-world applications. This isn’t another technology that only works in a laboratory. And Ajax applications can be any size, from the very simple, single-function Google Suggest to the very complex and sophisticated Google Maps. At Adaptive Path, we’ve been doing our own work with Ajax over the last several months, and we’re realizing we’ve only scra
A number of commercial web sites use Ajax techniques to improve their user experience. These sites are really more like web applications than traditional brochureware web sites that just display information because you visit it to accomplish a specific goal. The following are some of the more well-known and well-executed web applications that use Ajax.
