As we noted two days ago, Google is taking its home page black in support of Earth Hour.
We criticized Google when we first posted about this because, it turns out, black web pages actually may use more power than white ones (based on a study that Google itself cited last year). So Google is, ironically, causing people who visit their site to use more power to celebrate Earth Hour than they would on a normal day.
Google changed its message to users to note the disparity (compare to what they said to Israeli users two days ago), but I still find this all very funny.
Very cool and nice to learn that black pages use more energy!
once you go black you never go back
Google is using some blackhat techniques..
Black is the new Pink! hahah… yeah, I tend to like darker web pages - easier on the eyes after being online for too many hours.
Rex
Didn’t know that black pages use more power.
Earth Hour’s page is black too, did you notice?
Two questions:
Will this show up on google earth?
Has someone liaised with the power grids? I had hate to see our fun and games trip the essential services!
Black is the new white
Hey google spare my power suppy now that you would need that extra power:-)
But they turned their page black in order to raise *awareness* which is important too…
Google looks like pure evil in black.
One thing glossed over is the whole ‘75% LCD worldwide penetration’ statistic. I’ll stipulate that 75% of all monitors sold today are LCDs, but is the worldwide usage that high? Penetration also doesn’t corollate with the ratio of LCD/CRT that hit Google (though it’s probably pretty close).
Google is a bunch of hypocrites, just look at their private 747.
True that this gimmick requires more power than a white page. The psychological effect however (millions of people seeing this black page) by far compensates this effect in terms of awareness.
Ha, Ha! Evil Google..:) Are we in a Twilight Zone and experiencing parallel universe? Or has Google morphed itself into its True Black colors?
they forgot personalized start pages which i think is ~25% of all google users.
Black power! We have successfully infiltrated Google’s ranks. One of Google’s most powerful executives has been tempted by a seductress from Trinity United Church of Christ and the message of black superiority is now plastered across the Google homepage for the world to see.
God Damn America!
Please note that I do not have any association with Jeremiah Wright beyond the spiritual realm. I never heard him say anything controversial in the 20 years I attended Trinity United Church of Christ.
I am shocked at his TechCrunch comment and had I known of my church’s plan to infiltrate the ranks of Google, I would have left the church and informed the Googleplex special security services.
If the Google homepage was a white homepage, it would not be in this position. And if was a static HTML page of any color, it would not be in this position. It happens to be very lucky to be what it is. And TechCrunch is caught up in the concept.
“Raising awareness?”
Hilarious.
I just looked over their recommendations for computer power consumption and made the “aware” decision to not change anything.
Honest question - does anybody make a conscious effort to limit their CPU’s power consumption?
This seems like a totally pointless post to me. You already posted on this. Are you that worried that nobody pays attention to your posts that you have to make the same points twice?
More Google PR.
They should care as much about saving their dwindling stock valuation as they do about saving the Earth…
What is the warmering of which you speak? Please, someone, increase my awareness.
Now that all the smug-types feel good about themselves, can we get back to our lives?
Black at Google? Given all the white color you see around that campus…that seems unlikely. Even Obama had to buy his way onto google.com (ads).
Joking aside, Google has done a terrible job at conservation. They totally destroyed the local economy and ecosystem. They have their own transit system, own cafeterias, subsidize Prius for people that are already rich, and in general say F** off to the local community. Not cool. Oh and the execs take a $1 salary, which means they dont pay social security and medicare (cuz that doesnt get deducted from stock gains). And solar? It barely covers their office use….they have these massive data centers all over that produce massive draws of power as they have spawned virtualization and go for cheaper and less efficient (power wise) strategies.
WHen you start by saying “do no evil” you have already put yourself in an awkward spot. Otherwise they are on par with most of corporate america (good or bad).
looks uncomfortable. the fluke that make google succeed had a lot to do with that almost blank page. i wonder what would have happened had they started with a black page.
actually i have suggestion for google. want to save energy. turn your servers off. Or even better, install bicycle driven servers. You have plenty of engineers right? You probably have gyms. How about having google engineers get off their fat asses (or skinny asses) and start pedaling. I bet you could save on medical insurance bills too! And while you are at it, take over the hardware part of the business, maybe buy a corporate furniture company and sell entire ergonomic workstations.
no end in sight.
Google is the new Google… the only thing that will not change is change itself…
Google farted…..
double post on techcrunch :\ … booooring
Looks horrible
Perhaps Google should turn all its data center/servers off for one hour, I’m sure everyone would be fine with that.
Seems like Earth Hour is going a bit too far to do their bit: their server appears to be off as well.
I just don’t get Google… they already commented that making back background of a web page will not help in saving or reducing energy consumption.. then why do then make their page black…
“Our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption.” - ref : http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....green.html
Google’s effort is confusing and contradictory.. they would have done something different to show their passion… this is funny.
No one talks about blackle? Thousands of people use blackle everyday to save energy. Surprisingly, this page has “3890″ alexa rank. If this is true, probably people who use this service will decrease rapidly.
Michael —
This is one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever heard. I guess anyone in support of the environment should refrain from making environmental posters as they use up trees or from speaking about their cause as that uses up oxygen.
Get practical my friend. Do you think the excess power usage from this makes a lick of difference?
Ashish
Rise of a Black Swan??
Funny is right! Almost be offensive but more just funny. The black page data they themselves produced makes it almost microsoftian in its contradictions. I love the “awareness” argument. “Hey look! be aware of this thing that we actually aren’t doing anything about our selves!”Instead of telling people to just turn off the power why not also encourage them NOT to conduct the search they are about to?
I don’t buy into this global warming BS, after all, the planet cooled a whole degree in the last year, virtually eliminating the 1 degree increase that took a century to come about.
So I plan on leaving my tv and lights on when I leave to help get that 1 degree back
My electric bill is paid for by my employer so no worries there
My Google.com is still white, and no link to Earth Hour, or any other change that I can see. Yes, I’ve tried Ctrl+F5..
If you speak French, it even looks like you can Noiroogle.fr it. So if you use it in France, does that mean more or less use of all those french nuclear power plants?
“We criticized Google when we first posted about this because, it turns out, black web pages actually may use more power than white ones ”
You are a vagina…give me a break.
To Borge, You posted your comment after the removed the black homepage, check out Google Canada instead, they still have it.
The message is way more important than whatever the power difference in monitor colors is.
ah, they just did it on the home page which I never use, what people see is the search result page and it’s still white, boooo
It still uses less energy with CRT monitors.
And it is still black in the US, as far as I know.
I’m glad Google is somewhat globally aware.
But it makes me wonder about Google in China.
Ahhhhh, …..it’s the point they were ‘trying’ to make. Why focus on the actual premise that black consumes more power than white?
They were implying an analogy that when you turn your lights out you save more energy versus having them on.
I surf by monitor light. A black Google page equals me turning on the light to see the keyboard. I’m using search.yahoo.com till tomorrow.
Dude, They have clearly told that it is done to raise the awareness of people. I know of many social network friends who realized this Earth hour initiative after visiting Google’s pages. Whatz so funny in that?
what would impress me is if they shut down their servers for a day, that might save a few kilowatts
So T¢ has clearly declared war to Google?
No wonder I’ve never seen a Ubuntu story here in T¢
Hey Arrington, once you get associated with M$ it can’t be undone.
You’ll be doomed forever, you think it won’t come to bite you in the ass in the future? You’re wrong. You’ll pay dearly.
Dla mnie zajebiście wygląda!!!
Just (another) bunch of limousine liberals. Just like Gore who sucks all sorts of energy and then tells us to use less.
Btw, how many people know that Bush’s house in Texas is very energy efficient?
Gee, if he was a Democrat, it would have been all over the news - over and over and over again. But since this doesn’t fit the template of the liberal media (most of it), we don’t hear about it and we never will.
http://www.practicalenvironmen.....icient.htm
The ultimate irony would have been if Gore included Bush’s house as an example of energy efficiency in his sole contribution to his Nobel Prize - his PowerPoint.