San Francisco residents who logged on to Google on Saturday were met with a black version of the popular search engine home page. Read more at Search Engine Journal, a site I found using my new favorite web gem, StumbleUpon.
Google changed their look to support the City of San Francisco with their "Lights Out San Francisco" energy conservation initiative. While google has no plans to expand access for this layout or even to make it permanent, there is, apparently, an energy conservation conscientiousness movement that has been lobbying the google to do exactly that. Their contention is that by changing to a black background, google could directly impact energy conservation initiatives on a global scale. But is it so? The Google says
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.
You will, of course, notice that I have changed to the black background, as well. What can I say? I'm a giver. I give back to the environment. Just doing my part.
