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If you hated yesterday's forced-wallpapering of Google Search, you weren't alone
Then, late Wednesday night, Google's Marissa Mayer posted on their official blog that there would be 24 hours of auto-cycling background images on the Search page. One problem with that was that hardly anybody pays attention to the official Google blog, and half the Internet began to freak out and curse their screens as they went to google.com to find that it had suddenly turned into a Bing lookalike. Needless to say, what was meant to be a showcase of a new feature quickly turned into Google Buzz II: the Redux.
It only took a few hours of intensely negative feedback in all of the major social networks (along with "how to remove background from Google," and its many variants, reaching the top-ten most searched items) for Google to prematurely pull the plug on the 24 hour demo.
According to PC World, Mayer later said that, due to a coding error or glitch, a blurb explaining why there was a background image to begin with never appeared on the Search page. That little bit of explanation could have silenced the roar of a thousand tweets had users ever seen it.
However, given the extraordinary number of people that were seemingly unable to notice the link that clearly says "change background image," I have a feeling that there would have been uproar even if an explanation had been provided on the page.
Comments
25
Subscribe to commentsAndroid underlingJun 11th 2010 12:20PM
What Google doesnt seem to realize is that Bing is actually designed for backgrounds, the entire homepage is built around it. Bing is very careful to make sure all the text and other web elements look good with a picture.
Google's homepage on the other hand was built for a white background, so when they throw up a background it looks really awkward. You can just have all this random text everywhere and use some dropshadow, etc. You have to redesign the page if backgrounds are going to work.
That sad, I much prefer Google's default white page. They shouldnt try to be like Bing.
R10pez10Jun 11th 2010 12:24PM
The 'Change Background Image' link had no option to remove the background image from Google completely anyway...
Gardiner WestboundJun 11th 2010 12:53PM
I clicked on the "change background image". If there was methodology for returning to the traditional Google Search page I must have missed it. Fortunately it returned on it's own. Now I know why.
dmitr77Jun 11th 2010 1:16PM
Going a bit off topic I wonder why people even go to the google home page or bings for that matter. I would think that with most browsers integrated search bars that would have a big thing of the past, but I guess the integrated search bars are more of a power user element than I thought. I wonder what the breakdown of usage would be.
Android underlingJun 11th 2010 1:35PM
Because its their homepage in most cases
StormtrooprDaveJun 11th 2010 3:36PM
You can't do I'm feeling lucky in the integrated search bar. Plus the text of what you searched for stays in the box for all to see.
PiroThePyroJun 11th 2010 4:06PM
@StormtrooprDave
Where I work a guy left "woman lifts 30 pound glass ball with vagina" in the search box. When our boss saw it, he just walked out of the room and sent him an instant message saying "look in your search box." It was pretty funny and we laughed about that forever. I love it when people leave funny stuff up there.
iptydafuJun 11th 2010 1:30PM
great, the New Coke of the browser wars
darrennieJul 1st 2010 11:09PM
The irony for me, when I tried to put up one of my pictures many times it would not let me but later that night I could not get rid of a VERY bad picture that google put up and there was no rotation or randomness just one very bad pic. The reason I started using google way back when was the white quick too the point page, come on google if it ain't broken don't bing it.
SlappyJun 11th 2010 2:32PM
To change the google background required logging in to a google account.
If you had a google account, it was one of the options as "white."
My theory is that it was an attempt to force more people to use google while logged in, thus making the search data that much more valuable since it was associated with a specific account.
DanieleJun 11th 2010 2:40PM
The thing that was driving me nuts was that choosing a white background the logo and text remained white, making the homepage almost unreadable.
Bryan PriceJun 11th 2010 4:08PM
Funny. I couldn't understand the uproar myself yesterday (I've already set my wallpaper) when I checked my wife's computer, and it was the normal plain white background. If it WAS forcing a wallpaper, I would have thunk that it was a mistake, and gone on with my life and see what happens the next day.
Go figure.
MpmcfarlaneJun 11th 2010 4:41PM
The problem with Google's background image compared to Bing's is that Google's considerably changes the loading time. Also, Google is meant to be very minimalist and a background image doesn't help that. The biggest annoyance about there background images is that they usually don't fit well and are cropped oddly.
Matthew RogersJun 12th 2010 12:46AM
Not to mention the quality is terrible if you're using a large browser window.
Bryan PriceJun 11th 2010 4:38PM
I also have to say that I use Firefox and keyword expansion to do my searches on Google anyways, so I rarely see the front page to begin with. Only the times when I get the dreaded "You look like a bot!" error, anything with email in it (which I find odd, but hey...).
Muffin_manJun 11th 2010 5:21PM
I thought it was absolutely hilarious that people were so outraged by it. I can imagine it now, people sitting at home rocking backwards and forwards in their chairs going "This can't be happening, this isn't real. Make it STOP!"
I don't use Google for its aesthetics, I use it because it's the best search engine. As people here have already said. Who uses the homepage anyway?
Eh, besides I use a greasemonkey script combined with my custom background to make google look sexy.
http://209.85.12.237/3707/18/0/p1015331/google.png
finding.zen89Jun 11th 2010 9:24PM
I didn't like that at all. I love google search the way it is. Clean and loads quickly...having the background just makes it load slowly. Google should be an army of their own, not subdue to follow Bing from Microsoft, that's already going downhill.
David ChuJun 12th 2010 4:33AM
Google just seems to keep moving away from it's founding principles.
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html
It reminds me of when Scully took over Apple and fired Jobs. Apple forget about what made them Apple. I really hope that Google remembers what made them Google sooner or later. There is a lot to love about Google but I cant call myself a fan anymore.
SmithereensJun 12th 2010 7:12AM
The real irony in all this isn't that Bing has backgrounds and Google "copied" the feature. It's that everyone assumes Bing was first. They weren't. Ask.com had custom backgrounds TWO YEARS before Bing arrived...
Muffin_manJun 12th 2010 9:41AM
You must have a really slow computer or something. You do know that the search bar isn't affected by the picture in the background, right? And that you don't even need the homepage to do searches, right? And that Google didn't copy Bing at all, right? And that google aren't "subdued" by anyone, right?