I Went to the Googleplex

The Google TV Ambassadors were invited out to the Googleplex (Google headquarters) last week.

I thought about a couple different ways to go with this post, at first I was going to make the Google campus seem like a wonderland, where the grass was more vibrant and the air smelled sweet, and other such stupendous things.  But then I thought “some people won’t get it”.  So I thought I’d go the other way with it, the Google offices that everyone sees are wonderful, but it is a front!  The employees are literally chained to their desks and forced to work 18 hours a day and everyone from the press releases are just paid actors, and now my life is in danger for telling you these things that I wasn’t supposed to see!  But then I thought, “I don’t want people to think anything, but that the people I interacted with at Google were, in fact, quite awesome”.  So I decided just to tell it like it is, like I so often do.  If you want me to write one of the fantasy posts voice your opinion below, if enough people do I will get it/them on here for your entertainment.

I could go on and on about how cool the campus is and all the benefits that Google employees have, but others have already done that and I wasn’t there for free food and riding a cool Google-colored bike (but I did do that).

We spent time with the Google TV support and developer teams.  It is great to have such a big company take an interest in what individuals think about their products.  While the Google TV Ambassadors is a small group of people, what isn’t small is the number of people not on the Google TV team who are brought in to try-out Google TV products and provide feedback.  Dozens of people with varying degrees of familiarity with the platform are brought in each month to see what Google TV can so, get some hands-on time themselves, and voice their thoughts on it.

The Google TV team is great.  Every person there wants a good product for their end users.  I think the thing that frustrates them the most is people and companies who “don’t get it” and aren’t ready for the next evolution of TV viewing.  It was fantastic to get to share ideas directly with the people who “make it happen” and get to hear what they think about things too.

We got a tour of the facilities, and I took all the dorky pictures I could.

I can’t divulge everything I learned there, but I can say that there are more awesome things coming to Google TV!