Google users who accessed the search engine from the San Francisco area yesterday were served an all black version of the Google Homepage. No, Google is not caving in to the ‘Blackle‘ energy saving movement, which insists that by switching over to a black homepage Google will contribute to energy conservation around the world; instead Google is working with the city of San Francisco to raise awareness of the Lights Out San Francisco energy conservation project.
Google users in the San Francisco Bay Area will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a citywide energy conservation event called Lights Out San Francisco.
On Saturday, October 20, 2007, Lights Out San Francisco invites the entire city of San Francisco to install one compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) and turn off all lights for one hour, from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm PDT. According to estimates, turning the lights out in San Francisco for even one hour could save as much as 15 percent of the energy consumed on an average Saturday night.
Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Lights Out campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful citywide event.
If Google switched to a permanent black homepage design would it save energy in the long run? Google says not really:
We’re committed to reducing the effects of climate change by promoting energy efficiency, but current evidence doesn’t suggest that a permanent change to a black background would be beneficial to either the environment or our users.
Lights Out San Francisco is a nice projesct so good for them, they get help from Google.
I like it. It smth different. And I think it’s more better fjr eyes. It’s also have a some kind of style.
A black screen would not save power on LCD monitors. In fact, it uses more power. We used a Watt Meter to test this. Check out the link and the video.
A black homepage would dramatically increase their Goth readership. Perhaps some other enterprising dark search engine will come along and cater to this long underserved demographic.
Why does Google have to fly in the face of convention? What do we tell the children? How can we explain that, apparently, once you go black, you actually can go back?
OK, at least that one has a reasonable purpose behind it. Unlike what Kuwait does begging people to turn off cooling systems and washing machines to avoid power loss! This is a silly over $30 million campaign ran in Kuwait under name of Tarsheed.
“turn off all lights for one hour, from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm PDT”
Non-peak hours, huh? So power gets generated…and not used…brilliant!
“It does not help Sire!”
I think the whole idea is to raise awareness about what you can do to save energy. I am pretty sure Google was not trying to save electricity. If people are talking about it, I am sure the goal was accomplished.
There are around 22 different versions of “black google” online. The best one I’ve found is http://www.cleanblack.com. Cleanblack is the only version that allows you to change the text colors of the google search results. Try it yourself by going to http://www.cleanblack.com/theme/