[unalone]

It might just be me, but when I see announcements so overly-styled, without the styling having much semantic relevance to the content, I stop trusting the site that made the announcement. I want to place my faith in no-nonsense services, and an announcement like this is all-nonsense.

Lore is an excellent name for a service, though.

[headbiznatch]

I thought the presentation metaphorically enforced the message they were trying to deliver. To me, that's actually useful and not "over-styled" or "all-nonsense" - it's a valid technique to communicate with more than just words and to encourage a viewer (well, a viewer that doesn't distrust animation and/or "styling") to watch the entire presentation.

[unalone]

If it had been done well, I would agree with you. But it was fluff – visually simplistic, yet too generically symbolic to convey anything actually meaningful. What's more, the break between sentences disrupted my actually reading their thoughts, and the animation further distracted from the message.

Text plays by its own rules. If you're using text to express thought rather than to evoke some kind of emotion, you want that text to be as clear and as direct as possible. There are tactics which can be used to enhance the delivery of a statement; this one does nothing but distract from the message.

[headbiznatch]

I disagree. The circles represent people. The metaphor is skillfully used in conjunction with the words.

You don't want to dig deeper on this - fine. I get it. But there is a symbolism being successfully manipulated here and just because you don't like it does not mean it isn't "done well". It just means you don't like it.

[unalone]

That's the sort of "skillful metaphor" a group of high school kids would put in a Social Studies PowerPoint. It's funny that you think what you gleaned from the circles involved any sort of deep digging: the symbolism is as blatant as it is pointless. It's a stylish flourish that adds an animation to thoughts so simple they needed no illustration.

[headbiznatch]

Heh - OK. Yeah, I like the 3 Stooges AND Spalding Gray, so you can get as arrogant as you want to about that.

Some of the other style/substance mavens here agree with you, but this one doesn't. That's all... I think you should be a little more gracious in your dialogue when you start it with "It might just be me...".

[MaysonL]

I stopped reading during the second instance of floating circles - it's too much visual annoyance for too little payoff.