Tag Archives: Google Fiber

1100 Communities Vie For Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 29, 2010

The deadline for nominations has passed, and according to a post on the official Google Blog, over 1100 communities submitted bids and almost 200,000 individuals. The number of nominated cities almost doubled in the last few hours before the deadline. The post referenced was originally posted at 10:00 AM, and they had 600 municipalities. After the deadline, they posted this update:

Update at 5:26pm: The response deadline has now passed. We’ve received more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals. This map displays where the responses were concentrated as of 1:30pm PT. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. We plan to share a complete list of government responses and an updated map soon.

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Google Moment Today at 1:30pm

Published in Asheville Live on March 25, 2010
This is one of the huge welcoming signs for Go...
Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t already nominated Asheville for the Google Fiber initiative, wait just a little bit longer. Today at 1:30 PM will officially be the “right time” to submit your nomination. Asheville City Council passed a resolution creating the “Google Moment” and is encouraging everyone to submit your applications for Asheville at the same time.

Be part of the moment! At 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 25, Asheville citizens including school children, employees, and business leaders, are encouraged to participate in a

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Track Asheville's Status on Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 22, 2010
A segment of a social network
Image via Wikipedia

BlogAsheville has a terrific rundown of how you can track Asheville’s (and other cities) bid on the Google Fiber initiative. It includes lists of cities bidding, searches of various social networks, YouTube, Twitter hashes, and all sorts of ways to surf the Googleverse to find out who is bidding, what they’re doing, and what is being said about them. End result: Who’s winning? No clue, nobody knows except Google.

Check it out here: http://blogasheville.blogspot.com/2010/03/track-news-about-your-towns-google.html

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Scenes from GoogleAVL Town Hall Meeting

Published in Asheville Events on March 19, 2010
This is one of the huge welcoming signs for Go...
Image via Wikipedia

The Google Fiber Town Hall Meeting was held last night at the Asheville Civic Center Ballroom and the message was clear: Fill out your form. Each and every one of us needs to make sure we fill out a form nominating Asheville as a candidate for Google’s Fiber initiative. To do so, go to http://googleavl.com and click the button that says “Nominate Asheville”. But hurry, time’s running out.

What should you say on the form? The speakers addressed this last night.

Do say:

  • Tell Google why you believe Asheville is a good fit for their program.
  • Tell Google how you will use their Gigabit-per-second internet connection to do things you simply can’t do with a standard internet connection from AT&T or Charter.
  • Tell Google how it will let you innovate.

Don’t say:

  • Don’t tell them it’ll just let you do what you’re already doing only faster.
  • Don’t tell them it’ll let you download your porn straight into your brain at the speed of light (they didn’t cover this last night, but I thought it needed to be said).
  • Don’t tell them that it will “save” Asheville or be the root cause of a technological revolution that brings Asheville out of the dark ages. This simply isn’t true. Asheville is already in the midst of a technological revolution. Google’s Fiber will simply allow that to shift into overdrive and bring about real change to our community and the world.

Another overarching message of the night: Asheville doesn’t need to change our name to Google like some cities have done. Asheville deserves to be chosen based on our merits, on our real qualifications. What are those qualifications? The GoogleAVL site lists 18 good solid reasons.

Below: a few pics I snapped of the event.

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Google Fiber Town Hall Meeting

Published in Asheville Live on March 15, 2010
Downtown Asheville is a major attraction for t...
Image via Wikipedia

The Google Fiber initiative sweeping through Asheville heats up as the deadline approaches. Organizers will be holding a Town Hall meeting at the Asheville Civic Center Ballroom. Be there this Thursday, March 18, 2010 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM to learn what you can do and to listen to discussion and ideas from the leaders of this movement.

Have ideas of your own? Come on down and let everyone hear it! Asheville would benefit greatly from such an ultra-high-speed bandwidth program. The already innovative technology sector in Asheville would potentially expand exponentially! And that means jobs and revenue.

Ok, it’s the final push. We only have until March 26!! Come and learn how you can help or come and share an idea that will help put Asheville on the map for Google. This is a grassroots effort and everyone is a leader so don’t be shy. Let’s hear your ideas!

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Asheville is Crazy for Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 14, 2010
This is one of the huge welcoming signs for Go...
Image via Wikipedia

From Facebook groups to blogs, full blown websites to Town Hall meetings, Asheville is going nuts for Google Fiber. Ever since Google announced it would be bringing its ultra-high-speed bandwidth connections to a select few towns across the country, the people of Asheville have been ga-ga for Google. Asheville isn’t alone, though. All across the country, cities and towns have raised their hands and collectively grunted, “Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me!”

I don’t know if Asheville will get it, but I certainly hope so. We’re certainly qualified, methinks. Don’t believe me? Take a look at http://googleavl.com/, a website devoted solely to the Google Fiber initiative. If you aren’t convinced already that Asheville deserves a shot at the project, a little browsing on that site should go a long way toward making up your mind.

The latest post is very interesting. It’s a video put out some time ago by AdvantageWest and Meet-the-Geeks showcasing some of the advanced technology innovation going on in our fair city. I’ve reposted the YouTube video below, but I encourage you to head over to Google Fiber Asheville to find out how you can help to bring this amazing opportunity to Asheville.

[swf]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5m3_M8RqOw,425,344[/swf]

The audio may be wonky, but it’s the message that matters!

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