Google Adds Black Menu Bar

[indigojo]

Clocked on this morning to see a black menu bar...they should focus on improving the algo I think not the GUI!

[tedster]

they should focus on improving the algo I think not the GUI!

Different teams - no conflict of resources is involved

[caribguy]

Seeing this on .com and .ca from Europe.

[indigojo]

Different teams - no conflict of resources is involved

Of course there isn't...just being facetious after being underwhelmed by Google of late!

[dickbaker]

Maybe it's a black band to show they're in mourning for all of the sites that were slaughtered. ;)

[walkman]

Maybe it's a black band to show they're in mourning for all of the sites that were slaughtered. wink

Or trying to catch up on revenue :) . Do a search for a commercial product and see what the dark sides and top do.

[jimh009]

That black bar is just plain ugly.

Time to allow for "user customization" of it - hint, hint Google.

[lucy24]

Aaack! That's horrible!

I miss most of this stuff because I default to Google Advanced and the decorative things are usually only in vanilla google. But...

Ugh!

[netmeg]

heh, to me it looks like the WP admin menu.

[supercyberbob]

Maybe it turned black from all the hate from webmasters.

[chrislloyd515]

As google moves into it's teenage years it's perfectly natural to add some black eyeliner and have a few tantrums. It's just a "stage"

[Freedom]

IN FF, clicking on the toolbar page Cache doesn't work anymore, for me. Anyone else?

[lexipixel]

Probably part of the "Google+" experiment -- getting ready to turn it into a FB like portal.

[Freedom]

Sure, just when the FB fad is starting to wane and dip.

Remember when blogs were the rage? And Shopping search engines?

[lexipixel]

Google blog post about the redesign---

Starting today, you might begin noticing that things look a little different across Google products. We’re working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you’ll continue to see more updates to our look and feel. Even our classic homepage is getting a bit of a makeover: The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience—one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on. The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.

[googleblog.blogspot.com...]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:19 pm (utc) on Jun 29, 2011]

[johnmoose]

I seeing it now in G-reader too and it looks terrible...

[EvilSaint]

Also seeing it on .com.au version

I'm using a black skin for my Firefox and it looks like it has just merged with my browser window making the actual page look smaller...I still prefer looking at the Bing page as a default start up option everyday :) & more recently, most of my search activity as well...

Wonder how many meetings they had about colour choice and the shade of black to use :P

[zehrila]

Google being emo because no one is clicking on their +1 button!

[londrum]

i think its looks alright. i feel a bit sorry for the design guys at google because they can never "pretty it up". it's got to stay plain white, with big ugly search boxes and buttons, because that's what everyone expects. i am sure they are just itching to get some pictures and backgrounds on there.

[richelectron]

I've also got it on .com from South Africa. Seriously, how many man hours can it take to make a bar black!? I doubt any valuable dev / algo time was lost over this :)

[vivalasvegas]

I don't like the black either - it seems a bit irritating.

[mhansen]

I use Chrome for EVERYTHING to do with Google (gmail, etc.. things I must be logged into the "Services" for), and I use FF for everything else, aka, things I prefer Google not track. (I block a lot of cookies in FF)

In Chrome, I see the same old Google with a wp-admin look-alike-bar at the top. Black. Basic.

In FF, not logged in and blocking as much as I can live with in the form of cookies... Google looks completely different to me, almost Bing-ish, without the nice picture!

Softer colors, styled search button, gray background behind the search box, etc. And... no black bar at the top!

Also worth noting... in FF, I see 1 Adwords ad on the top spot of the results. In Chrome, logged in, there are no ads! I searched for a "BigBrandName TV"... just to compare the look.

Other commercial search results show 3 ads in FF, and only 1 in Chrome. Hmmm that's something different.

MH

[brotherhood of LAN]

Seeing it in the UK also.

No big deal to me, looks fine.

FF 3.5 on Ubuntu

[rlange]

I kind of like it. I don't know if black really fits Google's "theme", though. It seems out of character.

supercyberbob wrote:
Maybe it turned black from all the hate from webmasters.

Heh. Introducing the new Google Mood Bar.

--
Ryan

[ember]

Really don't like that black bar at the top. Started seeing it yesterday.

[Woz]

>>trying to catch up on revenue!

Bit behind the times. ;)

Seminal Thread -> [webmasterworld.com...]

Onya
Woz

[potentialgeek]

Hate it! It looks just like the Norton Security bar (same color), except it's worse (thicker). The black Norton bar burned a line across my monitor.

Contrast is too high, to say nothing of the bland color. The least they could do is let the user customize the color. But I'm sure such a radical feature won't be introduced until 2021.

[loner]

I'll check it out if I use the Goo again, ... someday, maybe.

[netmeg]

Actually got used to it pretty quickly. In the grand scheme of things, not worth getting worked up over, I don't think. I don't use much up there anywhere. 80 yr old mother (who uses Google daily) didn't even notice.

[Leosghost]

Now go look at it from a phone or a pad/tab/slate ..

Google doesn't really care what it looks like on your monitor..although they might care about how it looks on your HD TV.