San Francisco — With all the latest Internet toys, and gadgets, Google has marked the start of the holiday season with the latest in a series of “Postcard Doodles” to mark special occasions and celebrations period. The image, the newest and more innovative designs in an extended tributes from Google, shows a small boat on a mountain lake and a festive building on the shoreline.
Google is famous for their innovative logos that commemorate major events. To start things off, Google is now displaying an image of a post card over the regular logo, rolling out a number of Holiday Wishes logos that they plan on rotating for the rest of the Holiday season, which is followed by the previous day’s picture of a palm tree on the postcard that replaces the second half of the usual multi-coloured logo.
It is not entirely out of theme though, when user clicks over the Google logo, it then wishes everyone “Happy Holidays from Google!” and leads to the page listing the Google logos for the 2009 holidays, users can view a series of phrases titled “Holiday Logos 2009,” which appears to indicate it will be the first in a series of Google holiday/ Christmas themed logos.
In addition to reading “Happy Holidays” in English language, other texts include “Auguri di Buone Feste,” “Felices Fiestas,” “Bonnes Fetes” and “Schone Feiertage”.
Some critics however, appeared to have commented on the search engine for not using the “c-word” – Christmas. “Has Google forgotten how to say ‘Merry Christmas’,” one site asked.
Google’s homepage has another interesting trick up its sleeve, introduced a short while back. Also marking the 40th anniversaries of landing on the moon by Apollo 11 in 1969, and the 50th of James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the shape of DNA, are among other happenings marked by the “Google Doodle”.
Another interesting thing happens when you click on the “I’m feeling lucky” button keeping the search box empty will instantly display a huge counter just below the central elements. It is counting down, second by second, and the number is now below 1,000,000. It is not much of a mystery though, a few simple calculations reveal that it is the number of seconds left until 2010. Completely useless, but certainly geeky enough to make most people at Google proud.
Last month Google unveiled a special incorrectly spelled version of its own name – as “Googlle” — to commemorate the company’s 11th birthday and it recently sparked fevered speculation with a series of UFO themed doodles to mark the anniversary of the birth of the War of the Worlds author, HG Wells.
The next one could be coming soon and we will have to wait and see how long the series goes. What is more, Google may have a few more surprises ready under its sleeve as it gets closer to Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Happy holidays, Merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year to everyone!