Really cool reading this back story, in 2010 I launched a web search engine that displayed search results as favicons (no text, image only). The goal was to appeal to kids (using images and not text) and mobile devices (I generally find only 3 search results fit on a mobile screen using standard search engines, but the favicon engine allowed a user to see 30 search results on the screen at once)...the traction did not last and it was shut down. Nevertheless, great learning experience and my fondness of favicons and their importance only grew.<p>Edit: The part about Yahoo also made me recall a prior version on Yahoo's mobile search which displayed favicons prominently to the left of the search result text (first thing your eyes saw was the favicon), and at the time I felt Yahoo had the most aesthetically pleasing results page of all the search engines on mobile, all because the addition of the favicons.
<i>> noticed an unusual spike in HTTP requests for /favicon.ico</i><p>I remember a guy at Uni reacting to this in a fit of anti-MS pique ("How DARE they go making useless non-standard requests to my server behind my viewers' backs!!!!!!!") and putting a large meaningless file there for IE to find. It didn't take him long to work out he was only hurting himself...
Reminds me about the story of <blink><p>TLDR - guys were drinking and kicked around the idea of the blink tag. One of them left late that night to implement the tag overnight.<p><a href="http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag" rel="nofollow">http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag</a>
HN discussion <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3865141" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3865141</a>
having read it..<p>You need to get a life and realise how much pain and suffering you have caused us all non m$ users.<p>To this day its a pain.. even a png auto would suffice..<p>What would be your plan NOW ? For everyones sanity . check