What’s Wrong With A Universal Google Icon
Posted on June 21st, 2008by Michael Gray in Google
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When Google switched to a single universal icon a few weeks back they created problems, the icons on my bookmarks toolbar are now … (wait for it) … IDENTICAL. The last two on the right are Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central, so I have no idea which is which. Compare that to the Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Docs icons on the left which are different.
Yes I do use Google Reader, Google Calendar, and Google Docs after having tried many other options IMHO they are the best products in their category.
UPDATE
so some folks are reporting seeing a new icon in the wild, I still have the old one but hopefully it’s a caching data center thing. yay google
June 21st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Wow… that’s got to be really handy. Maybe a graywolf toolbar on the horizon? At least a plugin to fix whats eff’d w/ FF & Google.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Yes the new favicon sucks balls. and you should check out this thing called Microsoft Office it does some amazing things for docs/spreadsheets/etc and tons of people use it. - hope you are enjoying your weekend michael and aren’t working like me
//g
June 21st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Hmm, that is kind of annoying. Not sure whether I can get anyone to change it, but I can at least mention it to people.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
At least you have a point to icon grief and it is not just the fact you hate it. I don’t mind it, but if I was in your boat I bet I would.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I don’t particularly like the new icon either … It just doesn’t seem to be ‘Google-Esque’ … That’s my rant.
BTW Mike … http://www.wolf-howl.com/feed/ is now aggregated on http://www.seomasterlist.com
June 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
So there used to be a Firefox extension called Favicon Picker that dealt w/ this issue… it hasn’t been updated in awhile.
I was thinking about taking a shot at updating it for FF3, but I have no idea how to go about that so it could take awhile or forever.
otoh, I forced it to install to FF3 and it didn’t work exactly.. though it did preserve all of my old favicon selections while not allowing me to select new ones. additionally, the preservation of favicons stuck after I uninstalled it.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 am
Lol, google sure didn’t see that coming.
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 am
Does anyone know if you could hack your way around that with a Grease Monkey script ?
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Yes!! I’m one of those people that over-uses the FF “tab” feature and usually have 6+ tabs open at once. Right now, 4 of my 6 tabs are all Google Features/Products. It’s pretty annoying to have to click on each tab to figure out which was my search window, which one is GA, etc. It would be great if each product had it’s own favicon (like Gmail) or if the Title Tag was more obvious to the product (like AdWords)?
I’m sure it’s simply an oversight and wanting to be consistent for branding, but a little annoying none-the-less. Great point!
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
same problems here! They have to change it
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
It’s a shame you use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central - what’s the point of using this spyware??
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Google sucks. People think Microsoft is bad…give google a few more years.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
As you requested Mr. Gray on Twitter
http://friendfeed.com/e/84024b3c-4f28-4c81-a4e6-3e415f5cafaf/Digg-Wikipedia-Updater-Fired-For-Scooping-NBC-Tim/
I do not know what to make of it! Durova makes this comment on a Digg post ! “Problem is, the NBC staffer broke Wikipedia policy: Wikipedia isn’t designed to be a first point of publication. The site doesn’t have fact-checking resources that NBC and other mainstream news outlets do. That’s why Wikipedia requires that information be verifiable to established sources. One minute after NBC breaks the story: excellent. One minute before: no-go.”
I ask her to clarify, “That is no reason to fire the man! Does Wikipedia dictates to society what actions it should take against an individual who has violated Wikipedia policy intentionally or by accident?
Is Wikipedia now in the business to Social Engineering Society? Or is it a reference to knowledge?”
http://digg.com/tech_news/Wikipedia_Updater_Fired_For_Scooping_NBC_Tim_Russert_s_Death
I posted again in Wikipedia roundtable FF room!
From the page: “IBS says a “junior-level employee” changed the Wikipedia entry to reflect Russert’s death because he or she thought it was common knowledge. When NBC discovered the entry–and freaked out about it–someone else at IBS deleted the date of Russert’s death and changed all of the verb tenses back. And then IBS took care of the employee.”
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/nbc_scooped_on_tim_russert_death_by_wikipedia_twitter_nyt_et_al_and_wikipedia_updater_fired
How did NBC find out who the IBS employee was? Was he editing under his real name or as anonymous editor? Durova you or another Wikipedian please address these questions.
http://friendfeed.com/e/84024b3c-4f28-4c81-a4e6-3e415f5cafaf/Digg-Wikipedia-Updater-Fired-For-Scooping-NBC-Tim/
She or any other Wikipedian still has not replied!
Lise Broer aka Wikipedian Durova has been exchanging emails for a while now. She asked me to help with David Shankbone stalking.
I am contacting you because of your discussion about Durova with Marty aka Aimclear on Twitter!
I have posted the same information on his blog
http://www.aimclearblog.com/2008/06/21/introducing-miami-ad-school-to-our-search-marketing-community/#comment-3691
Regards,
Igor
June 24th, 2008 at 9:24 am
That really is the pits, Michael. Actually I was adopting the same approach with Firefox and using the MiniFox theme that really allowed you to put loads of favicons in your Bookmarks Toolbar. Unfortunately that theme is not compatible with Firefox 3. Hopefully that omission will soon be redressed.
The solution I’ve adopted that works not too badly is to have a single character as the title of the bookmark in the favicon Properties information. So my bookmark for Google Trends appears as follows:
!
This works well for me although you can’t get as many favicons on the toolbar. I use the same trick where a website does not have a favicon. This works particularly if you have some Javascript bookmarklets. For example to put numbers on Yahoo SERP results, the bookmarklet has the characters #Y. Wow, perhaps I should have blogged about this.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Corporate branding run amok — give us different icons for each service.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Google always trys ideas out in the open and I think that may be their down fall at times.
Would you liek to use a product that is changing it’s self as you use it?
Google should keep stuff in beta untill the beta tester pass it, not just beta for 2 minutes and then BAM out in the open!
It does’nt work.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hmmm. A change in the icon order or maybe a new separator would do wonders with that. It is their favicon you know, and they have a right to do with that as they please. Sucks to be us lowly geeks who need to use them side by side.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Ah yes, I can see where that would create a huge problem — perhaps enough complaining and they will!
June 27th, 2008 at 9:51 am
On Firefox, I need to be able to look at all my tab and identify them by the icon. Google should definitely put a different favicon on each product. It doesn’t matter what the icons are, as long as they are unique and rapidly identifiable. I’d like to see different colors. Switching tabs is something I do hundreds of times per day, and even a little boost in efficiency will make a noticeable difference.
June 29th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
If you hover over the link does it have mouseover tag or image alt attributes?
July 1st, 2008 at 10:51 am
I think google will change that after sometime. Then it will be better. The other thing that can happen is they will keep it same and people will get used to it.