Obviously I spend a lot of time on the web, maybe even an exorbitant amount by some accounts, so I am bound to be affected by even the smallest change. The other day I felt as if something was not quite right within the force. Despite my best efforts and searches, I could not put my finger on it. I thought maybe one of my Firefox plugins updated something out of the range of my normal glance, or postulated that something had gone awry in the Google tool bar. Only about a day or so later did I come to realize what had changed - Google had changed their favicon (it was brought to my attention that not everyone knows what a favicon [aka favorite icon] is, it is a 16×16 pixel icon to the left of the URL when you open a web page)! The classic blue Google “G” had now been replaced by this overly stylized, scripted, lower-case “g” that can be best described as an open toilet seat.

You have permission to laugh at me at will, but this has really thrown me off. Now, not only are all of my search results tainted by the small image of a toilet seat, the unfamiliar favicon catches my glance every time I am working, ultimately making me less productive. This favicon issue has been at the forefront of my thoughts for the past few days. Google does not understand the ramifications of this change, and really needs to consider what exactly they are doing. This is a problem that upsets me to no end, and will cause me a great deal of stress and anxiety. This is really a huge mistake!

Dramatic? Yes. Truthful? Somewhat. I like to consider Google my most personally valuable and trusted resource on the web, and to go behind my back like that and switch things up makes me wonder what other sneaky things you are doing. Are all of my AdSense ads going to spontaneously start looking different too? What are you doing with all that dark fiber Google? Still practicing the mantra of do not be evil?! Maybe between all the back rubs and gourmet lunches you are dolling out to your pampered (spoiled) employees you should have taken a moment to consider how your users might feel by being forced to look at a favicon closely resembling a human waste receptacle.

Now that you have gotten rid of the uppercase “G” it is nearly impossible for me to find the tabs that contain my search results. What genius came up with this design anyway, it does not even remotely match the rest of the branding you have going on! Please Google, just give me back the big “G”. No one really thinks all the things they say about you developing a “Big Brother” persona are true, and besides, do you really think a change in the favicon’s capitalization is enough to fix any such unwarranted claims? While the little “g” is much less institutional looking, and does give the feeling that you are just a group of laid-back, do-gooders that spend their free time saving puppies, it is hurting my searches and making me consider leaving you for a lesser search engine with a bigger favicon.

Size does matter. I need to be able to see the Google “G” when performing searches and having tens of tabs open. I will give you until the end of the week to rectify this problem, at which point I will seriously need to reevaluate my use of your site for my internet search needs. All I ask is that you spend the same amount of time required to make this new icon to sit down and really look at the argument for bringing the old icon back, although by the looks of it that might only be about 10 minutes.

June 5th, 2008 | Entertainment, News, The Office, Natural Disasters