Wow.

I'm floored by the intense backlash of Google's background image experiment that took place a couple of days ago.For example, check out some comments regarding a post about the topic I just read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/10/google-background-image-h_n_607236.html



There was a clearly defined link to change the background image on the main page (with solid colors, including white) which so many people seem to have missed. After such a negative reaction Google pulled the temporary default background image set and claimed there was supposed to be a notification on that front page stating that it was only to be done for a 24 hour period, after which it would be changed back to its usual default white.

Someone in the comments of the article I linked mentioned the whole New Coke fiasco, and that was the first thing I thought of when I saw how people reacted to this.

Really, whatever Google's motives were, it ended up working out well for them. They got a large portion of the web to proclaim that they love Google Search just the way it is, introduced a new feature to a huge audience which undoubtedly caused an increase in the registration of Google accounts (even if only to kill the background/set a custom one) which will allow them to tie future searches to specific individuals and increase ad revenue, and probably made Bing look tacky to a lot of people for its forced and un-customizable backgrounds.

Quite an interesting fallout for something as simple as a background image loading on a web page by default for a few hours of a single day.

[edit]As for me, I barely noticed. I use an iGoogle home page, and really do most of my searching from Chrome's address bar or another browser's equivalent search box. Rarely visit Google's home page; didn't even know about the Pac Man doodle until late the day it launched. I think I actually stumbled across the background feature when it was mentioned in one of my feeds.

I dont even know what the hell you are talking about, it's always been white for me.
Also anyone complaining about this sort of thing is dumb.

I didn't like it much, and switched it off when I found the option. Near-instant loading is the main reason I use Google as my home page.

I didn't feel as strongly about it as those commenters did, though. It wasn't that big a deal, and the pictures were pretty.

I found it pretty annoying...

And the whole time new coke actually was better.

Whatever, I never visit the google front page. I launch all searches from the little box in my browsers address bar.

I think the problem was setting the background to solid white did not bring back the google page, it just changed the colors as if you had set any light colored background (IE links and text were all black or whatever it does).

I set mine to my desktop wallpaper. It doesn't look half bad. Link even looks in the right direction!

I thought it wack.. I mean it was like a total bing rip off is what I thought

Is there anyway to still view google with the background? I was in the woods for 6 days and missed out... I'm curious to see what all of the hype was about.

First off, the white background you could choose was a bg image and the text still looked all gray and weird (not back to normal), so the "solution" was just as bad as the original problem.

Second, the change background image link didn't work for me and a lot of other people. It could be the extensions I have in firefox or something, but it wouldn't work all. I clicked it and it just did nothing.

Third, I was one of the zillions who upon seeing it searched google for "how to remove google background image" or similar. It show up to something like the top 10 most searched for things that day.

Fourth, I think the whole thing is funny. It does highlight weaknesses in the "software as a service" model. If you don't like the changes, tough. There is no way to downgrade or continue to use the old version like you can with desktop software.

Finally, the comments about it wasting energy are stupid.

It's a long time ago, but I read somwhere that some organization calculated how much energy could be saved if Google's blackground was black instead of white. They even created www.blackle.com... (Google with a black background)

It's supposed to be a Google custom search , but searches give different results... =\

I was all ready to rip hufpo readers for being the obvious morons that they are but they might have a point this time. Being unable to revert, or disable the option, is dumb.

I wonder why my google stock tanked a little this week. Interesting read though. I don't think google will let such a mishap like that occur again. I bet it was some new corporate ******* that didn't even understand what google is about. Googles creators are smarter then this. That was not their idea.

Google's benign little things have an incredible way to stir up anger. I snagged these from the Twitter feed of a co-worker:

http://productideas.appspot.com/#15/e=127061&t=119d7e
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=1c3745a41695edc1&hl=en

I hardly even use the Google search page anymore. I did find Microsoft's response entertaining though.

I didn't care for the bkgd images. And you could set it for a solid color (white) and it would have looked the same. Some of those folks commenting were idiots.

I thought it was interesting, but I also looked for an option to turn it off. I like the clean simple look. Leave backgrounds to Bing.

My question is, how many people are genuinely upset and not just pissed because "Google is doing something that Microsoft is doing."

I personally found it quite nice, although I agree there should be an option to remove it.

But... LCD monitors use *more* energy to display black...

thats racist.

Brand loyalty is a crazy thing ... another example akin to the new coke one is when IKEA decided to change its fonts in its monthly catalogs and there was an uproar w/ ppl declaring that they felt 'betrayed' and that IKEA had 'sold out' etc etc etc

I haven't seen the google homepage in aaaaages.
Chrome homepage showing recent thumbnails is quick and clean, and I can just type words in the address bar to google for them.
I suppose if I were to have an internet homepage, it would indeed be google, as it loads instantly and has almost no download (us Aussies count our megs remember). So I suppose I would be annoyed if there was an un-necessary background image slowing it down and using extra download un-necessarily, but somehow I don't see it causing that much slowdown or data usage. But yeah, I'd just disable it, it's nothing to get angry over.