The world was abuzz about Google.com going black around the world at 8pm local time. It happened a bit earlier at Google Israel, and then Saturday night it went black again:

Why? For Earth Hour.

Google users in the United States will notice today that we "turned the lights out" on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don't do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

Ironically, for me to take that screen capture, I had to have my lights on to power my computer. In any event, we have lots of forum reaction to Google going dark.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Cre8asite Forums.

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