This is a little bit different -- the dots don't fall back down after a while if you leave the cursor there, whereas the Google ones did. Is this intentional?

And is it okay to reuse this on other sites?

The dynamics is all coming from Rob Hawkes' code (available on github)... writing your own text is just a bit of fun I added on top.

If you want to reuse it - go for it! What have you got in mind!?

The google one actually shook the dots if you shook the browser window. Did anyone else notice that?

Off topic: is anyone else slightly annoyed when people link attribution to twitter profiles?

Yes!

You might notice that I created my twitter account just for this show-and-tell. I didn't want to put my email address, and I don't have a blog right now, so twitter seemed like a good compromise.

What would you prefer? I suspect most people don't need any more email. Twitter is as good a medium as any, and if you do need to discuss in more detail, I'm sure they're happy to receive your email feedback.

I was surprised when this became a "trend" since I figured most people would want someone to visit their own site first, but it turns out to work pretty well as long as their twitter profile is decent.

Interesting. Is each character dynamically generated, or is there a hard-coded mapping from characters to dots? I'm guessing the latter as it doesn't seem to work with non-latin characters.

There's a credit for "lettering" so I'd assume it's hard-coded.

That's right. Here's the big reveal: http://twitter.com/emilepetrone/status/24005757704

Thanks again to Emile for patiently drawing the letters!

Does anyone have a link to a copy or reproduction of the original Google dots logo? I missed it on September 7, when it was on the Google homepage.

except that when the browser window is resized, at google the dots were moving

Comic Sans!

Yes. This is exactly what the internet needs.