Google Wallpaper Experiment Crashes

I wondered what was up with my morning searches?

At TechCrunch, "Google Kills Its Homepage Background Image Experiment Early":

Last night, Google decided to temporarily abandon the principles behind its famously spartan homepage in favor of something a little different: a background image, which has been a design element present on rival search engine Bing since it launched. Users predictably went nuts as their clean, bare homepages suddenly featured flowerly hippo things and other colorful photographs. Countless tweets have complained about the images, and our story last night racked up over 200 comments. “Remove google background” is currently the fifth highest trending topic on Google.

Now Google has apparently decided that imposing a background image on users wasn’t such a good idea after all, and they’ve turned off their experiment around ten hours early according to a tweet from Marrisa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. Users that visit the Google homepage are now shown the normal design, along with a link that says “Curious about today’s homepage? Add your own background image now”.

More at the link.

And at CSM, "Remove Google background, critics plead." CSM compares Google to Facebook, but I'm thinking Sitemeter.

Check Google's blog as well, "The art of a homepage."