It's April the first so Google changed the "I feel lucky" button to "I'm steering lucky". All well and good except that the button no longer works. Now when I type in "wikipedia conjuctiva" and click nothing happens and and the small fragment of control I thought I had evaporates in a scorching hot howling whirlwind of despair.
Now I realise that most people will not react quite as badly to this as I did, but really, am I ever going to buy any Google product knowing that they might pull this kind of stuff on me in the future? That is, change its functionality for a cheap advertising gimmick. Well, I'm less likely to now. They may have caused themselves millions of dollars of damage to their brand today. They've certainly managed to associate the phrase "I'm steering lucky" with low grade frustration. All over, kind of dumb.
UPDATE: After midnight the "I'm steering lucky" thing went away and the button started working normally again. However, now it is back again, along with its annoying lack of function. What's the bet that someone at Google noticed my online whinge and put it back for the whole of Australia? Making us suffer through disabling the "I'm lucky button" was bad, but punishing a whole continent because of what one idiot wrote online - well, that's pretty funny actually.
Labels: April 1st, brand damage, Google, I'm feeling lucky, I'm steering lucky
