google continues to impress

Google continues to impress me with their person-centric model of service delivery.

Today I go to my standard Google homepage... the basic blank screen with the search box and the Google logo. Except this time the Google logo had been replaced.

Now you'd think it would have been replaced by advertising of some sort right? A big Coca-Cola splash banner or something.

Nope.

In it's place was an active Pac-Man game. See the picture below.

I'm not sure why they did this, but it continues to show that Google is about 'fun'.

To be honest, I think as interesting as the Pac-Man game is, they probably shouldn't have done this. They've now broken their long standing tradition of the Google homepage being nothing but the search box and the Google logo.

Yet, despite the fact that I think it was a mistake (one easily corrected however), I have to say it's great to see a company willing to make mistakes in the spirit of trying new things. If only Yahoo had the same philosophy and would redesign yahoo.com (which continues to be information overload).

Most large cap companies would never fiddle with something that was working. They would wait for competitive pressures to mount before trying to make something that was good, better.

I suspect Google doesn't have this problem because their internal culture is likely a supportive one of group dynamics dedicated to innovation - as opposed to the typical Darwinian model of internal competition.

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