I don't mean to sound snarky, but I hope they didn't pay their designer too much. What's with that odd drop-shadow effect to the left and right of the header image? Is it to denote that the header image is bulgy? And what's up with the rest of the drop-shadow effects? What angle is the light coming from?

And why use Google Sitesearch? Surely a custom-written search interface would be a great way to show off the power of Erlang?

I wish this were two comments so I could upvote the first paragraph and downvote the second.

while I agree the design could still use work, jumping on the drop shadows is silly. Designs down have to follow physics, function of design elements can be more abstract.

Just because it doesn't follow some global light source doesn't mean it's not functional. It serves a purpose by helping better highlight the colors. Would you be okay if we separate the edges with a solid black line? What if he added a gradient to that line?

There are free templates that look better than this.

This demo looks really great, is the software driving the site written in erlang?

At the bottom of the page it says "Powered by Erlang Web". Erlang Web is a script written in procedural PHP to simplify website maintenance.

...

Huh?

Erlang Web is pure Erlang, it doesn't have a single line of PHP. [http://www.erlang-web.org/]

It was a joke :(

I thought it was funny.

Ah. Didn't get it.

Probably because writing erlang.org in PHP actually makes more sense to me than writing it in Erlang (:

Hmm, contrary to other comments, when first looking at site my thoughts were "Wow, looks cool. Looks like something modern and active rather than archaic."

The first thing I want, "about/wtf is erlang", is right there on the home page without even having to go to some about page. [Too many modern projects have no intro/assume everyone knows about it]

Two second things I want the most are big and prominent, Documentation and Download

The third thing I want, News, has it's own section.

Everything I want, on the homepage. No clicks, no menus. I think that rocks.

Agreed and let’s not forget it’s a massive improvement compared to the old site.

Does not look good. Bad logo.

Quick thoughts: Logo in the top header seems really small and cramped in that space. Colors are too dark and monochromatic. Mix in lighter shades of the blues and reds in the middle box.

With all respect, the designer tried to deliver an awesome 2.0 web feeling, however they fell short.

I agree, the logo needs some spacing, the "e" especially needs some spacing on the left side. I think a better logo is needed period.

For started the typography is not all that appealing. The default font verdana looks like blah, I think arial looks nicer, at least to me.

Another thing that bugs me is the content area. The contents are not flowing right; it needs to be re-arranged or something. The the gray area with black text on top is not doing it for me, maybe a lighter gray to increase contrast.

Anyway, it's a good start, but a lot of work needs to be done. Good luck.