Campaign heating up to lure Google Fiber Network to Grand Rapids

By Sharon Hanks

Community efforts are furiously speeding ahead to convince high-tech giant Google Inc. to pick Grand Rapids as one of its test sites for an ultra-high-speed Internet experiment called Google Fiber for Communities.

The Facebook site Google Fiber to Grand Rapids leads the nation with more than 22,000 fans since it was launched Feb. 10 by Mindscape at Hanon-McKendry. Mayor George Heartwell is one of the most recent fans to join. He even posted a pitch on YouTube.

Nominatations due March 26
But backers of the campaign believe Grand Rapids will have to shift into high-gear to succeed in convincing the innovative company that the River City is among its best choices for the fiber optic network. It's become a race against time. To participate in Google's "Request for Information," nominations from communities nationwide are due March 26.

"I think the activity in Grand Rapids is going very well," says Doug Lang, founder of the Grand Rapids Technology Partnership, an organization devoted to developing the city into a technological hub. "The social media push (here) is huge and that's a component of this," noting that the Facebook fans club created for Topeka, Kansas trails in second place with 14,000 Facebook fan members.

"I think what needs to be stepped up is community involvement beyond the keyboard (such as websites, twitters and blogs)," Lang says, adding that efforts at City Hall are well under way to complete the application earmarked for municipalities. "Google is a diverse company; their corporate culture is alternative to the status-quo business culture. They want to see the community truly involved."

Great opportunities with new video and photo contest
The new video and photo contest called "Bring Google Fiber to Grand Rapids" is a good example where the community has a great opportunity to be really innovative with a sales pitch to the Silicon Valley-based giant, Lang says. The community group behind the inthe616.com website along with four local restaurants are sponsoring the contest that's open from now until March 24. 

"They (contests) will be the engine that will drive creativity," he says. Two winners will be selected from both the photo submissions and the video submissions, with each winnter receiving a $100 gift certificate to one of the following sponsors: Brick Road Pizza, The Gilmore Collection, San Chez, or The Winchester. Contest rules are available at: www.inthe616.com/the-buzzzzz

Another activity that could create some buzz is to use Google products, he says. "There's Google.docs, Picasa (Google's version of flickr's image and video gallery), Google Chrome which is its web browser, and certainly, YouTube."

In the next two weeks, expect to see and hear more about the effort, Lang says. There are several different camps busy with plans. Last night some organizers met San Chez Café in Grand Rapids to explain what the Google Fiber Network would mean to the community. Another event is planned for downtown on Friday, March 19 by GRNow.com.

Google wants to roll out demonstration networks that move roughly 1,000 megabits per second, serving 50,000 to 500,000 people. A typical home broadband connection, in comparison, crawls at 1.5 to 6 megabits per second.

Sources: Doug Lang, founder of Grand Rapids Technology Partnership; several websites including Google and Facebook

Sharon Hanks is innovations and jobs news editor at Rapid Growth Media. Please send story ideas and comments for the column to Sharon at [email protected]. She also is owner of The Write Words in Grand Rapids.