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So as I suspected, Google has changed their graphic again this time representing couples figure skating.
This being the case, I think I will stick to my previous conclusion into Google’s change from the Luge graphic. While I may still be wrong I think the evidence currently available supports the scheduled changed rather than that of public opinion change.
So here is what is going on:
There was a horrible accident during practice at the winter Olympics in Vancouver where 21-year old Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili died while practicing on the world’s longest luge drop.
After this Google in typical fashion had a logo graphic featuring the Olympics, in this instance the Luge events were pictured. (shown below)
Shortly after making it way online the public decided this was in bad taste due to the events of the previous day. There were Twitter posts, Facebook comments, blog posts all bashing Google for poor taste and judgment. At the same time there were two other views I saw which appeared in slightly lower numbers, those views being that it was a good tribute and that it really made no difference at all.
Here is the current graphic as of this post:
Personally I tend to fit into the later, I simply do not see the huge issue of the graphic. Before I get a ton of hate mail, I agree the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili is a horrible tragedy and not something to joke about in any way.
I think hitting Google for the graphic on their site is really just a cry for attention by those who are feeling lonely behind their screens, the fact is that Google on a regular basis creates custom homepage graphics to publicize events happening around the world. A few additional examples of this include the Sesame Street anniversary week graphics, New Years, Christmas, Thanksgiving and the list goes on.
Now I read by Samuel Axon on Mashable that “Individual sensibilities differ regarding this, but Google apparently decided to play it safe by replacing the logo.” which was in response to the article “Google yanks luge-themed search page after torrent of slams from Web’s poor taste police” by Larry Mcshane of NYDailyNews.com.
In all of these articles no one ever mentions or even considers that Google may have planned on pulling the logo at that time. Considering that they created an entirely new logo I would seem to thing that it was planned or they called in a designer last min as an emergency. While either is possible there are no facts to claim either side, so reporters in typical fashion take the emotional site and play it up until they cannot find anything else to say. Just another example of professional reporters for major news networks reporting what they feel without having ALL the facts to justify it.
While I am not surprised to see this on NYDailyNews.com as I have been noticing it more and more over the last 18 months, but I am surprised Mashable staff writers had no thought to consider Google’s regularly changing logo and homepage graphics during memorable and historic events.
Tags: Google, Winter Olympics
Today I woke up to check the sites I worked on that I was getting ready to submit to a few awards and when I got to PlayPumps.org I at first thought something happened to the DNS or the site template on Backbaud Sphere (Kintera Sphere) only to finally find out they did it on purpose.
Here is the site Before (left) & After (right):
PlayPumps.org was the main site for PlayPumps International, with the primary portion of the site hosted on Kintera Sphere (now Blackbaud Sphere) which manages all of their online forms, donation and constituency as well as most of their content web pages.
The blog, gallery, and the videos were all managed on a sub domain blog.playpumps.org which was running an instance of WordPress which I had customized while working for Changing Our World Inc.
The blog functioned straight forward like a blog, that is the main tool in WordPress anyway so the only change there was to styling and layout. For the gallery the Flickr API was used to create a custom layout and pull in all of the photos, comments and tags used on Flickr. The images could then link to a larger version in a light box or to the original image in Flickr whichever they decided. The video was all YouTube based, so using their API I pulled in all of the information you could see or want from YouTube including the video, rating, YouTube link, embed code for the video and the description used on YouTube for the video.
On the PlayPumps homepage there was a nice flash element that rotated through 4 tabs which could have their text and content changed via an XML document on the server. This means by editing a single XML file they can change the text on the tabs, the link to the button and the url for the image. Also in the flash was a sample pump, basically it was the pump on the left with a water tower on the right, the tower filling based on a value in the XML file to the level of donations received.
In the end this is all gone, and what is going on no one knows. There has been no outward communication from PlayPumps or parent Case Foundation about the changes happening at PlayPumps International. The only news is that they are investing in Water for People (waterforpeople.org).
After all of the brainstorming, strategies, suggestions and helping hands held out to them, it has all be denied. Anyway, it seems my hopes for this organization are falling away faster and faster…
Tags: Changing Our World, Kintera, KnowH20, PlayPumps International, Web Design, Web Development, WordPress
When all seemed well this morning…
So nothing major, this is just the first time this has ever happened to me. Growl is a program that gives wonderful status updates in little pop up windows generally in the top right of my screen, out of the way of any work I am doing and translucent so that it is not very intrusive. It is nice because this is how I see when I have new mail , when people come online, when I get asked questions or responses via instant messaging etc. Growl also tells me when files I am uploading have been put up and when they fail…..
Well today my internet connection had been a little wonky at best, with ups and downs and some very low lows. In that there were a few times even loading iGoogle a page which is for the most part cached would rarely load.
In that time I was trying to upload a large number of files to a hosting server for a client, and well right in the middle the interent hit one of its lower lows…..then Growl decided to let me know lol…FYI there were over 1500 files trying to be uploaded, this went on for a bit…
Tags: Growl, Slow Internet