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March 29, 2008

Turn Your Lights Off, Google Needs Extra Power Today

Michael Arrington

67 comments »

As we noted two days ago, Google is taking its home page black in support of Earth Hour.

We criticized Google when we first posted about this because, it turns out, black web pages actually may use more power than white ones (based on a study that Google itself cited last year). So Google is, ironically, causing people who visit their site to use more power to celebrate Earth Hour than they would on a normal day.

Google changed its message to users to note the disparity (compare to what they said to Israeli users two days ago), but I still find this all very funny.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » 「アースアワー」に電気を消そう―Googleが余分な電力を必要としている

    March 30th, 2008 at 11:57 am

  2. pligg.com

    March 30th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  3. Google turns off the lights, should we join? « TLC Studio

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:57 am

  4. Michelle Malkin » What’s black, green, and eco-ridiculous all over?

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Comments

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  1. Everett

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am

    Very cool and nice to learn that black pages use more energy!

  2. Being Open

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:41 am

    once you go black you never go back

  3. Joost

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:44 am

    Google is using some blackhat techniques..

  4. Rex Dixon

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:49 am

    Black is the new Pink! hahah… yeah, I tend to like darker web pages - easier on the eyes after being online for too many hours.

    Rex

  5. Shannon

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Didn’t know that black pages use more power.

    Earth Hour’s page is black too, did you notice?

  6. Jo

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Two questions:

    Will this show up on google earth?

    Has someone liaised with the power grids? I had hate to see our fun and games trip the essential services!

  7. Patrick

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Black is the new white :)

  8. Vantrix

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am

    Hey google spare my power suppy now that you would need that extra power:-)

  9. Nate

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am

    But they turned their page black in order to raise *awareness* which is important too…

  10. lawrence

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am

    Google looks like pure evil in black.

  11. Henry Work

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:10 am

    One thing glossed over is the whole ‘75% LCD worldwide penetration’ statistic. I’ll stipulate that 75% of all monitors sold today are LCDs, but is the worldwide usage that high? Penetration also doesn’t corollate with the ratio of LCD/CRT that hit Google (though it’s probably pretty close).

  12. Robert Lancer

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Google is a bunch of hypocrites, just look at their private 747.

  13. Trivia Mania Download

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:24 am

    True that this gimmick requires more power than a white page. The psychological effect however (millions of people seeing this black page) by far compensates this effect in terms of awareness.

  14. Igor The Troll

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Ha, Ha! Evil Google..:) Are we in a Twilight Zone and experiencing parallel universe? Or has Google morphed itself into its True Black colors?

  15. ventureblogalist

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:36 am

    they forgot personalized start pages which i think is ~25% of all google users.

  16. Jeremiah Wright

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am

    Black power! We have successfully infiltrated Google’s ranks. One of Google’s most powerful executives has been tempted by a seductress from Trinity United Church of Christ and the message of black superiority is now plastered across the Google homepage for the world to see.

    God Damn America!

  17. Barack Obama

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    Please note that I do not have any association with Jeremiah Wright beyond the spiritual realm. I never heard him say anything controversial in the 20 years I attended Trinity United Church of Christ.

    I am shocked at his TechCrunch comment and had I known of my church’s plan to infiltrate the ranks of Google, I would have left the church and informed the Googleplex special security services.

  18. Geraldine Ferraro

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:45 am

    If the Google homepage was a white homepage, it would not be in this position. And if was a static HTML page of any color, it would not be in this position. It happens to be very lucky to be what it is. And TechCrunch is caught up in the concept.

  19. Bryan Woods

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:47 am

    “Raising awareness?”
    Hilarious.
    I just looked over their recommendations for computer power consumption and made the “aware” decision to not change anything.
    Honest question - does anybody make a conscious effort to limit their CPU’s power consumption?

  20. Matt

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am

    This seems like a totally pointless post to me. You already posted on this. Are you that worried that nobody pays attention to your posts that you have to make the same points twice?

  21. Sprague Dawley

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am

    More Google PR.

    They should care as much about saving their dwindling stock valuation as they do about saving the Earth…

  22. Paul

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:00 am

    What is the warmering of which you speak? Please, someone, increase my awareness.

    Now that all the smug-types feel good about themselves, can we get back to our lives?

  23. Google FanBoy

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:00 am

    Black at Google? Given all the white color you see around that campus…that seems unlikely. Even Obama had to buy his way onto google.com (ads).

    Joking aside, Google has done a terrible job at conservation. They totally destroyed the local economy and ecosystem. They have their own transit system, own cafeterias, subsidize Prius for people that are already rich, and in general say F** off to the local community. Not cool. Oh and the execs take a $1 salary, which means they dont pay social security and medicare (cuz that doesnt get deducted from stock gains). And solar? It barely covers their office use….they have these massive data centers all over that produce massive draws of power as they have spawned virtualization and go for cheaper and less efficient (power wise) strategies.

    WHen you start by saying “do no evil” you have already put yourself in an awkward spot. Otherwise they are on par with most of corporate america (good or bad).

  24. j

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:00 am

    looks uncomfortable. the fluke that make google succeed had a lot to do with that almost blank page. i wonder what would have happened had they started with a black page.

    actually i have suggestion for google. want to save energy. turn your servers off. Or even better, install bicycle driven servers. You have plenty of engineers right? You probably have gyms. How about having google engineers get off their fat asses (or skinny asses) and start pedaling. I bet you could save on medical insurance bills too! And while you are at it, take over the hardware part of the business, maybe buy a corporate furniture company and sell entire ergonomic workstations.
    no end in sight.

  25. 113.com

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:13 am

    Google is the new Google… the only thing that will not change is change itself… :-o

  26. person2

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am

    Google farted…..

  27. mobilekick.com

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    double post on techcrunch :\ … booooring

  28. Petey Wheatstraw

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:27 am

    Looks horrible

  29. Team Simplebucket

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Perhaps Google should turn all its data center/servers off for one hour, I’m sure everyone would be fine with that.

  30. Louis-Eric

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:32 am

    Seems like Earth Hour is going a bit too far to do their bit: their server appears to be off as well.

  31. Kevin

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:40 am

    I just don’t get Google… they already commented that making back background of a web page will not help in saving or reducing energy consumption.. then why do then make their page black…

    “Our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption.” - ref : http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....green.html

    Google’s effort is confusing and contradictory.. they would have done something different to show their passion… this is funny.

  32. Dave Sickoo

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    No one talks about blackle? Thousands of people use blackle everyday to save energy. Surprisingly, this page has “3890″ alexa rank. If this is true, probably people who use this service will decrease rapidly.

  33. Ashish

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    Michael —

    This is one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever heard. I guess anyone in support of the environment should refrain from making environmental posters as they use up trees or from speaking about their cause as that uses up oxygen.

    Get practical my friend. Do you think the excess power usage from this makes a lick of difference?

    Ashish

  34. Senthil

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    Rise of a Black Swan??

  35. Danny

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    Funny is right! Almost be offensive but more just funny. The black page data they themselves produced makes it almost microsoftian in its contradictions. I love the “awareness” argument. “Hey look! be aware of this thing that we actually aren’t doing anything about our selves!”Instead of telling people to just turn off the power why not also encourage them NOT to conduct the search they are about to?

  36. brian

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:01 pm

    I don’t buy into this global warming BS, after all, the planet cooled a whole degree in the last year, virtually eliminating the 1 degree increase that took a century to come about.

    So I plan on leaving my tv and lights on when I leave to help get that 1 degree back :-)

    My electric bill is paid for by my employer so no worries there :-)

  37. børge

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    My Google.com is still white, and no link to Earth Hour, or any other change that I can see. Yes, I’ve tried Ctrl+F5..

  38. The French

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    If you speak French, it even looks like you can Noiroogle.fr it. So if you use it in France, does that mean more or less use of all those french nuclear power plants?

  39. Justin Case

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    “We criticized Google when we first posted about this because, it turns out, black web pages actually may use more power than white ones ”
    You are a vagina…give me a break.

  40. Me

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    To Borge, You posted your comment after the removed the black homepage, check out Google Canada instead, they still have it.

  41. Greg

    March 29th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    The message is way more important than whatever the power difference in monitor colors is.

  42. Gubatron

    March 29th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    ah, they just did it on the home page which I never use, what people see is the search result page and it’s still white, boooo

  43. Matt K.

    March 29th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    It still uses less energy with CRT monitors.
    And it is still black in the US, as far as I know.

    I’m glad Google is somewhat globally aware.
    But it makes me wonder about Google in China.

  44. Justin

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    Ahhhhh, …..it’s the point they were ‘trying’ to make. Why focus on the actual premise that black consumes more power than white?

    They were implying an analogy that when you turn your lights out you save more energy versus having them on.

  45. Annie Sprinkles

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    I surf by monitor light. A black Google page equals me turning on the light to see the keyboard. I’m using search.yahoo.com till tomorrow.

  46. Krish

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Dude, They have clearly told that it is done to raise the awareness of people. I know of many social network friends who realized this Earth hour initiative after visiting Google’s pages. Whatz so funny in that?

  47. Jim Peake

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

    what would impress me is if they shut down their servers for a day, that might save a few kilowatts

  48. MyDaddy

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

    So T¢ has clearly declared war to Google?
    No wonder I’ve never seen a Ubuntu story here in T¢
    Hey Arrington, once you get associated with M$ it can’t be undone.
    You’ll be doomed forever, you think it won’t come to bite you in the ass in the future? You’re wrong. You’ll pay dearly.

  49. bart

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    Dla mnie zajebiście wygląda!!!

  50. Alz

    March 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    Just (another) bunch of limousine liberals. Just like Gore who sucks all sorts of energy and then tells us to use less.

    Btw, how many people know that Bush’s house in Texas is very energy efficient?
    Gee, if he was a Democrat, it would have been all over the news - over and over and over again. But since this doesn’t fit the template of the liberal media (most of it), we don’t hear about it and we never will.
    http://www.practicalenvironmen.....icient.htm

    The ultimate irony would have been if Gore included Bush’s house as an example of energy efficiency in his sole contribution to his Nobel Prize - his PowerPoint.

  51. Michael Arrington

    March 29th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    “limousine liberals”

  52. CARversation.com

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

    Michael- you’re missing the whole point, yes it does use more energy, but it gets the message out more and really sends a message, if they woulda never changed the home page, i woulda never known, and now im more aware and energy conscious.

  53. Rob

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    This must be the stupidest thing Google has done since its inception (Excluding Google Office)

  54. Will

    March 29th, 2008 at 10:04 pm

    They should do this for black history month as well. hehehe

  55. LiveCrunch

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    Michael ,

    Cool post, wonder if you turned your lights off :) i know i didn’t because i just moved in.

    See you soon bro..

  56. randy

    March 30th, 2008 at 3:59 am

    Google’s embarrassing dark/light pixel power consumption flap is a great example of just how ridiculous these “AWARENESS” campaigns have become.

    These “AWARENESS” campaigns are waning. We reject them over and over, ignore and disregard them, but the bastards just keep pushing them again and again and again until finally at some hysterically WRONG time (like NOW, when the Earth is cooling). Result: they all stink to high hell of P.R. and propaganda (propaganda especially, insofar as “AWARENESS” campaigns seem to always emanate simultaneously from tightly-controlled broadcast media).

    But is “AWARENESS” even reporting? No. Is it opinion? No. What is it? Advertising? “TURN YOU LIGHTS OFF.” No, sounds more like a directive! “TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF, OR….” Yikes, or maybe a threat? “TURN YOU LIGHTS OFF.” “TURN YOU LIGHTS OFF.” “TURN YOU LIGHTS OFF.” They keep repeating it to me, is this a control mechanism? Are they trying to control me?

    “Awareness” campaigns have become CREEPY! Very ORWELLIAN. Once these Awareness campaigns have been initiated, they are disturbingly difficult to turn OFF. You think you’ve succeeded (by, for example, remembering NOT to watch 60 minutes tomorrow because it will suck) but then lo and behold they’ve got an uncanny way of POPPING UP again where you least expect! Like on the cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED! “Awareness”! Or here on “tech” crunch! “Awareness”! Or for god sakes on the back of a goddamn CEREAL BOX! (GASP!)

    A cereal box!!

    “While you enjoy Cheerios, THINK: What are YOU doing to fight “Global Warming”?

    What the ??

  57. eric : Real World Green

    March 30th, 2008 at 5:54 am

    I give Google credit for putting this in front of a lot of eyeballs. I’m surprised by how many of my friends don’t know about Compact Fluorescents, let alone Earth Hour.

    I made a video about Blackle and black screens, testing CRT and LCD monitors with my Kill A Watt meter. You can check it out on RealWorldGreen.com http://tinyurl.com/2k69fb

  58. Sarah Meyers

    March 30th, 2008 at 7:39 am

    I turned my lights off for an hour. It was great! I looked out my window and noticed how many lights were on. Why didn’t more people know about this?

  59. Rob

    March 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    @58, You might have been looking at my house.

    I purposely turned on all of my lights during this hour and had the heater blasting.

  60. Meredith

    March 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    #56, take your meds before logging onto the internet, okay?

  61. James Pong

    March 30th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    Michael, I beg to differ but Black Google actually saves more power:
    http://www.treehugger.com/file.....gle_wo.php

  62. Munashe Gumbozvanda

    March 30th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    I wrote abou the same thing as well, but from an African perspective at

    tlcstudio.wordpress.com

  63. bonchibuji

    March 30th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

    I showed this fact to an audience in a presentation a year back….i still remember the gasp from the audience when they saw the familiar white background of Google changing slowly into a black one with the amount of power saved displayed on the side…

    here’s what I wrote about it in my blog

    Black Google

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