Also a filmmaker, Bass is best known for his work on movie title sequences, posters and corporate logos. How many films can you pick out from Google’s animation?

Saul Bass did title sequences for the following films:

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Big Knife (1955)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
The Racers (1955)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
The Shrike (1955)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
Storm Center (1956)
Attack (1956)
Edge of the City (1957)
Saint Joan (1957)
The Pride and the Passion (1957)
The Young Stranger (1957)
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
Cowboy (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
The Big Country (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
The Facts of Life (1960)
Exodus (1960)
Ocean’s 11 (1960)
West Side Story (1961)
Something Wild (1961)
Advise and Consent (1962)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
The Victors (1963)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1965)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Grand Prix (1966)
Not with My Wife, You Don’t! (1966)
Seconds (1966)
Such Good Friends (1971)
That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976)
Broadcast News (1987)
Big (1988)
The War of the Roses (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cape Fear (1991)
Doc Hollywood (1991)
Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Higher Learning (1995)
Casino (1995)

He did movie posters for:

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Edge of the City (1956)
Storm Center (1956)
Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Saint Joan (1957)
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
The Big Country (1958) (style b poster)
Vertigo (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Exodus (1960)
The Magnificent Seven (1960) (design not used)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Advise & Consent (1962)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
The Two of Us (1967)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Very Happy Alexander (1969)
Exodus (1960)
The Magnificent Seven (1960) (design not used)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Advise & Consent (1962)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
The Two of Us (1967)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Very Happy Alexander (1969)
Such Good Friends (1971)
Rosebud (1975)
Brothers (1977)
Notes on the Popular Arts (1977)
Bass on Titles (1978)
The Human Factor (1979)
The Shining (1980)
The Solar Film (1980)
Return from the River Kwai (1989)
Schindler’s List (1993)

Bass also did logos and designs for:

Alcoa (1963)
AT&T Corporation (1969 and 1983)
Avery International (1975)
Boys & Girls Clubs of America (1980)
Celanese (1965)
Continental Airlines (1968)[10]
Dixie (1969)
Frontier Airlines (1978)
Fuller Paints (1962)
Geffen Records (1980)
General Foods (1984)
Girl Scouts of the USA (1978)
Japan Energy Corporation (1993)
J. Paul Getty Trust (1993)
Kibun Foods (1984)
Kose Cosmetics (1991)
Lawry’s Foods (1959)
Minami Sports (1991)
Minolta (1978)
NCR Corporation (1996)
Quaker Oats (1969)
Rockwell International (1968)
Security Pacific Bank (1966)
United Airlines (1974)
United Way (1972)
US Postage (1983)[11]
Warner Communications (1974)
Wienerschnitzel (1978)
Wesson Oil (1964)
YWCA (1988)

Hat tip to Patrick from DoodleShow, Lists from Wikipedia

They introduced Bing Basic. There’s no mention of Google in the announcement, but it’s not hard to guess what the “telltale query” referred to is.

“Every day on the Bing homepage, we strive to bring you a picture of the world that you’ve never seen before,” says Bing principal UX manager Michael Kroll. “Just a single image a day, but always something memorable and beautiful. But for all the variety we’ve explored through the thousands of images we’ve showcased on our homepage since 2009, there are still internet searchers for whom full motion videos of South Pacific beaches, images of exploding geysers or 3-D underwater scenes are just too engaging. Indeed we’ve been told many people come to Bing to find the name of the movie with tom cruise and a unicorn only to get lost for days clicking around the homepage image.”

“So we ran some numbers on this unique online behavior, did some ethnographic research to study habits and tastes; and then took a shot at redesigning Bing’s homepage to discourage this behavior of exploration and discovery,” continues Kroll. “So today we’re running a special test, where if you visit bing.com and enter a certain telltale query, you’ll get something a little more bland. We decided to go back to basics, to the dawn of the Internet, to reimagine Bing with more of a 1997, dial-up sensibility in mind. We may see some uptick in our numbers based on this test, but the main goal here is just to learn more about how our world would look if we hadn’t evolved.”

So if you go to Bing.com, and search for “google,” you’ll be presented with Bing Basic:

It’s a pretty good shot at Google who continues to think, for some reason, that you might just want to search for something rather than look at pretty pictures when you go to a search engine. In fact, they recently got rid of the ability to set your homepage image.

On Bing Basic, there are little hidden squares in the image that you can mouseover for links, much like the typical Bing homepage. On of them says, “Having trouble seeing this image of an arctic fox eating marshmallows in a snowstorm? Click here to zoom out.” That takes you to images of arctic foxes. It’s a dig at all the white space. Get it?

One of the boxes says, “When there’s nothing else to look at…you may take drastic measures.” That links you to a video of “Watch Paint Dry…In HD!!!”.

One says, “If blank space is your thing…you could go low-tech.” That takes you to an image search for “plain white paper”.

Finally, the last box says, “With so many delicious flavors available, most people still choose vanilla. What’s your favorite?” Naturally, that links to the “Bing it On” challenge.

Strictly speaking about ice cream, I have to say, vanilla is a great flavor. It goes great with just about any topping.

With its numerous April Fools’ jokes (one is currently trending on Bing’s real homepage), Google appears to be continuing to pretend that Bing doesn’t exist.

Note: We’ve updated this article from its original form, and since it was first posted, the negative comments have flooded in. While you will typically see this with any redesign of a major property, we’re not seeing a whole lot of positive ones to balance them out.

Anything you do like about it? What do you or don’t you like about the revamp? Let us know in the comments.

“Over the years, Yahoo! has evolved from a directory of links to a place that helps millions of people go about their daily habits,” a spokesperson for the company told WebProNews on Wednesday. “Beginning today, you will start to see a new Yahoo! that’s designed to be more modern, intuitive, and personal, and I wanted to make sure you got the news from the company.”

Here’s what the homepage looks like now:

New features include:

• A newsfeed with infinite scroll
• Newly designed apps for stock quotes, sports scores, weather, Flickr photos, friends’ birthdays and horoscope
• Yahoo and Facebook login, which let you see personalized articles based on what your friends have shared
• A more consistent experience across the web, smartphones and tablets
• Under-the-hood improvements to speed things up

CEO Marissa Mayer wrote a blog post about the new experience.

“Designed to be more intuitive and personal, the new Yahoo! experience is all about your interests and preferences,” she says. “Since streams of information have become the paradigm of choice on the web, we’re introducing a newsfeed with infinite scroll, letting you experience a virtually endless feed of news articles. Whether you are a sports fanatic or entertainment buff, you can easily customize your newsfeed to your interests. And, to make Yahoo! even more social, you can log in with your Yahoo! or Facebook ID to get articles from thousands of news sources as well as those shared by your friends.”

“Because you come to Yahoo! everyday for must-know information, we’ve also introduced newly designed applications,” she adds. “From your local weather forecast to Facebook friends’ birthdays, you’ll always have the information you need. We’ve also refreshed some of what you love most — including our Yahoo! editorial features, and the daily snapshot into popular trending web searches.”

Mike Kerns, VP, Product, discussed the new Yahoo experience in more detail in a post on Yahoo’s blog.

“To view more personally relevant content in the newsfeed, just sign in with your Yahoo! or Facebook ID in the upper right corner of your screen,” he explains. “The newsfeed defaults to a ‘blend’ of story types, but also allows you to filter your view through a handful of popular categories, such as news, local, entertainment and sports. For additional choices in the newsfeed filter, just click the ‘More’ button to choose from other categories that interest you like business, technology, politics or science. If you want to see fewer stories about a particular topic in the future, hover your cursor to the right of the story and click on the ‘X’ button. And remember, the more feedback you provide, the more personalized and relevant your experience will be.”

“In addition to seeing news stories that your friends have read and shared, you can easily share with them,” he says. “When you come across a news item that you’d like to share, hover over it to view a button that allows you to share the story via email, Facebook, or Twitter.”

There are a total of seven new applications on the right side of the screen for: weather, stocks, sports, friends’ birthdays, horoscopes, Flickr photos, and popular videos from Yahoo. These can be personalized by hovering over the upper right side to clic the gears icon.

“For example, getting ready for March Madness? Add your favorite teams to the Sports application to catch up on the latest scores,” says Kerns. “Keeping an eye on your investments? To view stock quotes, click on the gears icon in the Quotes application to integrate your portfolio, look up quotes, or add new stocks. Travel often? Add as many cities as you’d like to the Weather application.”

You can also click the “x” button in the upper right corner of the application box to remove the application, should you see fit. There’s a “restore all” button a the bottom if you want to bring it back later.

As mentioned, the new design is consistent with the mobile experience, which lets you swipe through the “Today” stories. You can scroll down the newsfeed, and swipe left to take action on the content (like share it). You can also swipe left to access the applications.

The new design is in the process of rolling out in the U.S. Mayer says they’ll be making additional (but unspecified) changes in the coming months. We’re already seeing a lot of feedback (sadly, most of it is negative). It will be interesting to see how Yahoo responds.

Yahoo has indicated that it is focused on search, as it released its Q4 and full year 2012 earnings helped significantly by it. Whether or not Yahoo’s future search plans include Microsoft remains to be seen. Even if Yahoo wants to abandon the companies’ “Search Alliance,” Microsoft will do its best not to make it easy.

Right now, Yahoo needs to be concerned about keeping users on its still massively popular homepage. Yahoo has a realtime counter that shows how many people have visited the homepage up to the current time on any given day. At the time of this writing, tt’s just 8:40 Eastern, and it’s already received nearly 40 million views today so far.

What do you think of the new homepage? Let us know in the comments.

We’re starting to wonder if Google has some major homepage-related plans.

When Google told users their background images would be going away, they said, “As we build a more streamlined Google Search page for everyone, we’ll no longer be able to support customization with background images.”

Now, Google is going so far as to advertise to users that they set their homepage to Google, as Danny Sullivan points out. He shares a screenshot of a Google search for “google,” where an Adwords ad is displayed, saying, “Make Google Your Homepage” as the headline, with the additional text saying, “Access Google Conveniently By Setting It s Your Browser Homepage.”

He shares an additional ad, which has “Google At Your Fingertips” as the headline, with “Make Google Your Default Choice. It’s Quick And Easy.” as the additional text. Clicking the ads takes you to a landing page, where you’re encouraged to “Make Google your homepage,” and “get instant access to search and more, every time you open your browser.” There’s a button to “get started”.

Reasons for setting Google as your homepage, according to the landing page, include:

• Never miss a Doodle: From art to instruments to games, have fun with the Doodles you love.
• Search Instantly: See results as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.
• I’m Feeling Luck: Discover trending searches, famous artwork, local restaurants, and more.

If you’ll recall, Google recently expanded the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to include more adjectives.

So why the big homepage push all of a sudden? And at a time when Google is making the homepage experience more uniform to all users? Does Google have something homepage-related getting ready to go down, or is this just a strategy to keep people from going Bing or Yahoo?

Yahoo is expected to launch a new homepage soon, and Microsoft keeps giving people more reasons to use Bing.

A bar appears at the top, which says “Bing is more than just a pretty picture. See why.” You’re then presented with buttons for “Show me” and “No thanks”.

If you click the former, you’re walked through the following path:

SOPA Blackout Day will see sites like Wikipedia, reddit, Mozilla, and Failblog cease normal operations in order to spread the message that SOPA, PIPA and any similar laws can kill the free internet, and must be stopped.

Google is also planning on participating in the protest, although their demonstration is not quite as dramatic as a blackout.

Bloomberg is reporting that Google will place a link on their homepage in order to show their opposition to SOPA and PIPA. Google has been an outspoken opponent of the legislation for months.

“Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” Samantha Smith, a Google spokeswoman, told Bloomberg. “So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page.”

Of course, a link on the homepage is not as bold as shutting down your site for an entire day, but would we really want Google to do that? There is plenty of debate right now surrounding Wikipedia and reddit’s imminent blackouts. While some side with Jimmy Wales in thinking that the drastic action is necessary as a warning message of what could happen when you screw with the internet, others feel that it will be ineffective and even counterproductive.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called the idea “silly,” saying that “closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish.”

So Google won’t go dark, but they will add something to their usually-spartan homepage. It might be for the best. Can you imagine the freakout if people jumped online tomorrow morning and saw this:

“In addition to the visible design changes like new colors and spacing, we’ve made some changes to functionality to showcase the content that really matters to you: we’ve hidden buttons and navigation links until they’re actually needed,” says product manager Conrad Lo. “Now you can collapse the left panel to give yourself room for more gadgets, or pop it back out when you want to chat with a friend.”

So far, the iGoogle gadget directory is lacking any Google+ gadgets, and with more and more people using Chrome and its default tab page as a homepage, it doesn’t seem like iGoogle is playing to Google’s main points of focus these days, but that’s probably why it’s just now getting the redesign.

The fact that it did get a redesign at a time when Google is cleaning house and eliminating a number of its products, is probably a good sign for iGoogle users that it isn’t going away any time soon.

In fact, Google hints that more updates to iGoogle are on the way. With the Google+ APIs in testing, I would imagine that we will see a lot of Google+ related stuff coming soon.

It does provide a way for Google to control more of the web experience for non-Chrome users though. And it still does add a little something extra for Chrome users. The search box includes the recently launched voice search feature.

Original Article: Yahoo has a new advertising campaign going, which takes aim at Google. Will it help the company’s market share? Bing has been taking a similar approach since its launch. While its share has done pretty well considering how new the "decision engine" still is, it’s barely put a dent in Google’s.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo is dropping $75 million to $85 million on the new campaign. A representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews,  "the $75-$85M spend range is a subset of the $100M Yahoo! announced last year."  The campaign is kind of an extension of that "It’s Y!ou" campaign they launched last fall. "You" are still the focus. Take a look at Yahoo’s new ad:

Whereas Bing kind of attacked Google’s results with its commercials, Yahoo is going after Google’s homepage. Is this a good strategy? For one, Google offers a personalized homepage in iGoogle, for those who don’t want the simplicity. I also wonder how big of a role the homepage plays into the search habits of users at this point. There’s no doubt that it plays some role, but how many searches are increasingly coming from search keys on phones? How many from the search box on the browser? Or from various other apps and sites?

Clearly, Yahoo is not just plugging search here. It’s plugging its homepage in its entirety and all of the content and apps that go with it. How important is a homepage these days? I know I have pretty much all of the access points I need for a regular day’s worth of web browsing and working available right from my browser (via bookmarks/add-ons).

That’s not to say that Yahoo’s homepage can’t be useful. I’m sure many do use it frequently, but is the homepage really the way to win market share at this point? Particularly with mobile becoming such an important factor not just in search, but in how people access the web?

Now iPads and iPad-like tablets appear to be the next big thing. How important is a web homepage with these devices? Yahoo’s ad seems to come at a time when web access is trending away from the homepage.

I’m not saying the homepage is dead. You’ve got to start somewhere. But consolidating "everything you need" into one place seems to be happening more and more from a different level than the web itself – from the operating system, and the web browser.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz recently said, "Google Is Going To Have A Problem". Meanwhile, Google Chrome OS devices that will go right to the (Google-powered) browser upon startup are on the way. Android is already doing pretty well, and it’s getting ready to go to TVs. Google is now plugging the latest  version of its Chrome browser, which is apparently super-fast, as Chrome’s share of the browser market continues to grow. The world (or at least the fraction of the world that cares about the search industry) is still waiting for the integration of Bing and Yahoo.

Note: There is some conversation going on about this topic over on our Facebook page.

What do you think of the latest Yahoo ad? Will it be successful for the company? How significant is the homepage to your web browsing habits? Share your thoughts.

"Homepages present big opportunities for online advertising. For example, display advertising on Facebook consists mainly of small sponsored ads that blend with the rest of the content on profile and other pages within the site," says Jessica Ong on the Compete Blog. "It will be interesting to see if Facebook further monetizes its homepage."

Compete has now looked at AOL’s homepage as it pertains to ad inventory. Specifically, they looked at an ad for Tracfone. "This type of homepage ad is a go-to tactic for media buyers looking to drive lots of traffic, and hopefully sales, to their advertising clients," says Compete’s Alex Patriquin.

"However, it can often be difficult to tell just how effectively homepage ads perform. Clickthrough, the most common measure of ad effectiveness, doesn’t represent the full value of display advertising since many people who see the ad don’t click on it, but do visit the advertiser’s site afterwards," adds Patriquin. "There’s also the question of whether those people who visit an advertiser’s site would have gone anyway, regardless of whether or not they saw the ad."

It turned out that according to Compete’s analysis, visitors from the AOL homepage were 3.77 times more likely to visit Tracfone the same day. They were 6.28 more likely to visit in the same session.

Here’s what the referring sites looked like for Tracfone:

That’s a powerful homepage. Compete’s data was collected using a new "advertising effectiveness solution" it has developed for homepage ads on portals and other top publishers.

"Hompages present big opportunities for online advertising. For example, display advertising on Facebook consists mainly of small sponsored ads that blend with the rest of the content on profile and other pages within the site," says Jessica Ong on the Compete Blog. "It will be interesting to see if Facebook further monetizes its homepage." Here’s another interesting graph:

Other findings from Compete include:

-  Ads on the homepages of both MSN and AOL reached 13% of homepage visitors, fewer than an ad on the Yahoo! homepage, which reached 16% of homepage visitors (based on analysis of March visitors).

- In March, 22 million more people visited Google’s homepage than Yahoo!’s, despite Yahoo’s interactive homepage and fresh content

- Facebook rivaled Google in terms of homepage-to-domain visitors, attracting roughly 64% of site visitors to its homepage

- MySpace saw the greatest jump in its ranking of homepage visitors, going from #11 in domain visitor ranking to #5 in homepage visitor ranking, with 72% of site visitors seeing the homepage

- Homepage visitor traffic varies greatly at the top publishers – from 3% to over 70% of domain visitors – and this type of data is critical to executing effective media buying.

Homepages that offer advertising are worth big money to advertisers. Compete’s data is an interesting look into where the visitors are actually going.