Why Google Backed Down on Home Page Backgrounds

Google pulled the plug on its home page background experiment Thursday, just hours after the day-long endeavor began. The G-Team had planned on featuring different images in the background of google.com for a full 24 hours, a move meant to show off the company's new customizable background option.

When it became clear people weren't pleased with the home page change, Google decided to press the "undo" button early. It turns out, though, the growing user backlash was only part of the problem.

The backlash started early. With elaborate background images in place, Google's home page suddenly bore a remarkable resemblance to the busy look of Bing, the third-place search engine owned by Microsoft. The shift was a jarring change from Google's typical simple look, as evidenced by the pages of angry and often amusing remarks sent on Twitter.

"WHY does GOOGLE have a background IMAGE?!!!!! WHY?!!!!!" wrote one particularly distressed tweeter.

:story: Full story: PC World