Greenville loves Google!

Happy Easter! We’ve spent the day watching my uncle teach my nieces to golf. In one afternoon they are already better at it than I am at even one minute of put-put. Better even than I am at Wii golf. I understand that it’s all in the wrists, and I have wrists, but my wrists are permanently at odds with golf clubs.

While reinstalling Diablo II on my computer (don’t ask me why) Will discovered that WYFF has a video up alerting us to this Time Magazine article about Google Fiber. If you have an interest in either the Greenville community or the Google Fiber project, it’s worth viewing both. The Time article features Greenville’s effort almost exclusively. No matter what happens, I’m exceedingly proud of our town for pulling this together. From everything I’ve read, Aaron von Frank is to thank for leading this endeavor. Will and I both work in the tech industry downtown and have never met him, but I hope one day we can thank him personally for doing such an amazing job. The concept was simple, perfectly relevant to the challenge, and superbly executed.

Our hats are off to everyone who helped with the planning and all those who twirled a glow stick. Greenville is in your debt.

Google On Main!

Why haven’t we posted about this before?!

It’s old news to many now (mostly because it was announced a month ago) that Google is going to provide ultra-highspeed Internet access in one or more trial communities. Their marketing documents claim the access will be available in 1 Gbps speeds and beyond which sounds too good to be true!

Greenville, G-Vegas, Beloved Home is vying to be Google’s fiber test-ground.

If we’re chosen the benefits for the city are virtually limitless. To get Google’s attention, the city is organizing a demonstration tomorrow evening. Thousands of Greenvillians are assembling armed with LED glow sticks in different colors behind the Peace Center and marching down to Falls Park on the Reedy River to form the word “Google.” Helicopters will film all this from above, and I anticipate a virtual downtown block party when they finish. I don’t have many other details, but I’ve heard there will be much more to it. Will and I will try to be on-site with a camera to document the event. I’d love to take part but with my recent MS attack I don’t think I’m reliable enough to make the walk. As I joked last night, from a helicopter I would look like a lost packet hobbling around trying to find a bench. I really want one of these reusable glow sticks though.

Greenville Online has reported on this a little and the official site for the event is WeAreFeelingLucky.com, a reference to Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search feature.

Greenville was also one of the highlighted cities in this article. According to this, our competition is :

• Columbia, Missouri who held up signs during a basketball game. We watched this game and I missed this completely.
• Grand Rapids, Michigan who is organizing a flash mob fiber ring of people holding hands.
• Peoria, Illinois who sang a song and taped themselves doing it.
• Topeka, Kansas who renamed their city to Google for the month of March.
• Sarasota, Florida who renamed City Island to Google Island.
• Duluth, Minnesota who organized a Googlefest and dunked their mayor into Lake Superior.

Sure, we’re biased because we live here, but we love Greenville, SC and I can’t think of a better place for a Google Fiber Trial. We have tons of cool businesses already in the area (Michelin, BMW, iCar, Windstream) not to mention some big businesses coming in that will bring a lot of new jobs. Greenville, SC was also rated the #1 Micro City in the United States in the 2009/2010 North American Cities of the Future. Check out the links and come support Greenville!

UPDATE : We missed the event entirely (my fault), but here’s a great photo gallery showing some of what went down. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Greenville loves Google!

Great job on the logo!

Sara and I have been terrible about keeping the site updated in the last few weeks. Work has been crazy to say the least but I think we’re going to get a breather that should give us some time to get back to posting new articles and updates.

I am working on a new template for the site and some additional features that will allow people to connect to the website with their Facebook, Google, OpenID, etc. website logins that I hope will increase the interaction with our (few) readers.

Expect a lot of new articles that Sara and I have had in draft form for the last two to three months very soon.

I am trying out some new themes and plug-ins for the website to try to optimize the page for Search Engines (SEO) and streamline the user experience by allowing people to connect with their Facebook, Google, MySpace, or OpenID logins.

If things look out of whack or funky for the next few days just try back later. I’ll make a more detailed post after I have finished all of the updates.