Google desperately trying to appear like an ‘underdog’

Written on May 31, 2008 – 12:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Some things in life seem so unimportant, yet when they change you’ll immediately notice it. An example: have you ever changed the position of your office litter bin? If you have ever did so, you probably remember you threw your garbage on the ground - on the exact place where your litter bin used to stand. Well, same goes for the Google favicon. It’s always there, you’re likely to just ignore it, but now that it has changed, it’s such an incredibly salient little thing.

The big G has changed into a small g. And though I hate to report about minor stuff like this - in Dutch we call it belly-button staring -, I had to share this interesting thought from a Google Blogoscoped forum member with you. Tony Ruscoe is philosophizing about the meaning behind this new favicon: $Google\'s new favicon$

“Is Google undergoing a rebranding exercise…? Maybe they’re going to be known as ’the little g’ rather than ’The Big G’ from now on…

GB blogger Philipp Lenssen adds:

Google continues to grow and grow, but one of their self-proclaimed core values is “Think and act like an underdog”.

I had never heard of this core value, yet I’m sure to keep it in mind. It puts the whole Google strategy in another perspective. Maybe they have even lost the European Gmail case deliberately to appear like the poor underdog (insert wink smiley here).

One thing if for sure though, the more traction your service has, the more people talk about those minor changes. During The Next Web Conference, Digg founder Kevin Rose expressed the wish to have a small number of users again. So he could make radical changes to his social bookmarking service more easily. I see what he means, as only changing your favicon can be good for 276 blogposts with hundreds of comments.

I hope you like that post!

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core values, favicon, google, kevin rose, strategy, underdog

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

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6 comments/trackbacks to “Google desperately trying to appear like an ‘underdog’”

Jun 9, 2008: Google favicon; think you can do better? Maybe you can!
[...] few days ago Ernst-Jan wrote about the updated Google Favicon at this blog. It looked kind of lame and I remember thinking ‘I could do better than [...]

By Meryn Stol on May 31, 2008

I don’t think this is small. This report is well-justified.

I think the little g gives a more nimble impression. It makes Google seems more like a tool, and not as corporate. It places Google nearer to Apple (who even doesn’t name its brand on its ipods) and Web 2.0 sites, and further away from Microsoft and Facebook. I think its expresses Google’s wish to first and foremost keep us searchers happy. They have a good incentive for this: Without searchers, they wouldn’t have advertising revenue. Now new competition in search is coming up, they will have to try harder to keep the influencers happy. They just can’t have us recommending a different search engine to anyone.

Now of course the change of the favicon doesn’t change all that, but I think it signals their ambition.

You may like to read Umair Haque. He often writes about the strategies of Google and Facebook: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/

[Reply]
By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on May 31, 2008

Thanks for your insightful comment Meryn, I think you have a good point.

Also, as more and more people see Google as some sort of monopolist, it doesn’t hurt to appear humble.

Thanks for the blog tip

[Reply]
By Paola Bonomo on May 31, 2008

I noticed it too. Of course, no amount of cosmetic changes can make Google an underdog again.

[Reply]
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on May 31, 2008

I don’t see this as an improvement yet. The old G was very recognizable. This is just the a ‘g’.

[Reply]
By Eric on Jun 4, 2008

Google maybe trying to have trade mark or brand change and testing it with favicon.
I annoys me at first, but I think I’ll get used to it after few days.

[Reply]

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