Now its Google Space at Heathrow Airport
I have no idea what to make of the news that Google are to launch a temporary sort of internet cafe, called Google Space, and consisting of ten Samsung laptops in the public lounge of Terminal One at London's Heathrow airport.
The stand will apparently be staffed by at least two Google employees from 0700 to 1900 every day for the duration of the trial, which will run until 19 December. Google staff will be flown in from around the world to man the station. (and this for 10 laptops!)
For conspiracy theorists..
Quote:
Although the search specialist claims the project is primarily about helping travellers use their time more productively at the airport, it admitted that Google Space will also act as a physical testing lab for its new applications.
Quote:
Although the company chose Heathrow for the project, other areas which attract large numbers of people with time on their hands were considered, including train stations and doctors' surgeries. If the pilot proves successful, Google may roll-out Space projects in some other locations.
So what on earth are they up to?
- Y! MyWeb
www.googlespace.com
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Niraj Shah
South Plainfield, NJ
Registration Date.... 2005-05-28
Did they choose an airport
Did they choose an airport so filter out bored SEO’s ruining their tests.
Cheap Marketing?
To me much of that stuff is just cheap marketing for Google.
Launch projects that cost $100,000 or less and do a few new ones each week. The media coverage of "what will they do next" will be cheaper than any other form of marketing Google can do.
Needs it
They should be providing wifi - its about bloody time somebody did, the connectivity at uk airports aint up to much and tends to be bloody expensive.
Sounds like plain old market
Sounds like plain old market research to me. The only difference is instead of going to a mall rounding up folks to do a taste test, G is doing it at an airport.
Makes perfect sense to be able to look over the shoulder of your end user.
Heres A UK Google Link
http://www.google.co.uk/googlespace/
Dan
More nods towards infrastructure ambitions?
In a BBC piece entitled 'Google extends searching offline', Lorraine Twohill, Google's European director of marketing, says the following:
Today Heathrow, tomorrow Bishop's Stortford.