A couple of days ago, Google changed it’s favicon. A favicon is the little icon that appears to the left of your browser’s address bar.

Ordinarily, such a change is not worth mentioning, but coming from Google it’s worth taking note of.

It’s obvious that the new favicon is that of a lowercase ‘g’ , instead of the old capital ‘G’ .

There have been others who think that the new favicon looks like a number 8, which can be interpreted to mean the symbol for Universal Equilibrium, or male & female, Yin & Yang. The number 8 is a very popular number in China. Consider, for example, that this year’s Olympics in China will start at 8 P.M. On August 8 (the 8th day and month) of 2008.  Is Google revving up for the Summer Olympics by trying to attract more Asian Googler’s?

Some people say that the new favicon looks like a baby duck. Upon closer look, I agree.

A image conscious company, like Google, would not make this change lightly. You can imagine the hundreds of hours spent discussing this change, so all these meanings and metaphors would have been raised and contemplated. We’ll have to wait and see what else Google has up its sleeves.