This makes me miss the 00s, where these easter eggs and Google doodles still felt as something authentic and representing the true Google spirit.
Now I just see it as something that has been vetted in three different meetings by a dozen product owners who are only concerned by climbing a corporate ladder.
I don't know, maybe it's less authentic, but it's fun that at least it's still in the DNA of the place. Credit where it's due, even if it's not the same as in the past
Reading the comments on this easter egg not working for some makes me wonder if it's been A/B tested as every other feature nowadays. We are really approaching a Schrödinger's digital age.
There is a Google Doodle team [1], but I can’t seem to find anything about an Easter egg team. Does anyone have insight into if there is a team supporting this or if it’s something the search team does on their own?
Oh jeez, the only reason I had to keep Chrome on my phone (besides not being given a choice by Google) was to look up stocks as Firefox didn't display them with the full card/chart (even tho it was obviously a predatory measure by Google rather than a limitation of Firefox Mobile).
What a blessed day. I missed the general cards and synopsises Google made for some searches but couldn't be bothered to change browser (and watch ads) for them (aside from stock charts).
What you’re supposed to click on is an animated bat signal light that rotates and lights up yellow. It’s in the upper-right corner of the image carousel in the search results. If you click an image, it’ll take you to the image preview, but that’s not the Easter egg.
I don't see any preview when I click the bat signal. Instead, page turns a reverse shade scheme, then a silhouette of The Batman ropes and swings across the page over the content. That's pretty much an Easter Egg.
And you could kid yourself that it might just be a labour of love from a single engineer, rather than the product of a marketing team responding to quarterly strategic product directives triggered by engagement metrics.
Agreed. I don't know what to make of this. Is it marketing, the result of developer creativity or the outcome of an A/B-test, and why do Google search result quality go downhill so quickly?
I feel like Google could be "easily" defeated (for a tech titan).
Step 1: get antitrust regulators to break up the search+advertising business from Chrome+Android products. Don't let Google favor Google products.
Step 2: build a better search engine. Can't be hard with all the crap results that Google returns now. If Chrome and Android no longer default to Google, a new engine could grow and thrive.
Even the EU taking action could begin to chip away at this monopoly.
Step 2 is ripe for the right competitor. When Google entered the search engine market, it blew people away by providing incredibly relevant results, compared to the competition. You would be hard pressed to say the same today. However, the same quality of results can still be achieved, I am quite sure. It is "just" a matter of figuring out how, and executing on it. Given how Google found success, I think it is actually just a matter of time until a new challenger makes their entrance.
on edit: misunderstood witticism regarding age of the article to mean that it could have been written by a college freshman - didn't understand why 'in the fall' but now I get it.
No one said anything about the article’s author. The parent commenter was remarking on the age of the article itself, which was published in 2004 and therefore turns 18 this year.
