{"id":477677,"date":"2010-03-26T16:13:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T20:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01310fe40f32970c"},"modified":"2010-03-26T16:10:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T20:10:51","slug":"to-woo-google-long-beach-opts-for-old-fashioned-letter-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/477677","title":{"rendered":"To woo Google, Long Beach opts for old-fashioned letter-writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Cities around the nation have done just about everything to publicize their bids to host Google\u2019s new broadband Internet network, holding parades and parties, producing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_Kzd545n5ZU\">online videos<\/a> and taking ice-cold dips in Lake Superior.<\/p>\n<p>The city of Long Beach, however, took a more serious route, sending more than 700 letters with the application it submitted to the Internet giant Friday, the deadline for consideration. <\/p>\n<p>\n \u201cWe wanted to focus on substance &#8212; having a strong, solid application that was adult and responsible,\u201d said Councilman Robert Garcia, who sponsored the motion directing the city to apply for the broadband service called Google Fiber.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe bring to the table the most diverse city in the country, a city just the size they\u2019re looking for,&quot; Garcia continued. &quot;Hopefully, Google will take interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Google announced plans last month to build a 1-gigabit-per-second fiber-optic broadband network in at least one trial location, the first outpost of an envisioned nationwide system. The speed would be about 100 times faster than a typical high-speed Internet connection. <\/p>\n<p>Other communities nationwide have tried to garner attention to their bids through publicity stunts. The city of Topeka, Kan., <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-google-topeka3-2010mar03,0,6489302.story\">renamed itself \u201cGoogle, Kansas\u201d<\/a> for the month of March, and the mayors of Duluth, Minn., and Sarasota, Fla., jumped into an icy lake and a shark-infested tank, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>With a population of about 475,000, Long Beach just qualifies for one of Google\u2019s guidelines &#8212; that the winning city have from 50,000 to 500,000 customers.<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach officials hope the 706 letters penned by community leaders, technology experts and elected officials boost the city&#8217;s bid by offering an air of seriousness and professionalism.<\/p>\n<p>Are city leaders worried that letters might be a bit too old-fashioned to woo a tech firm?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt\u2019s an online application, so they\u2019re all PDFs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8212; Tony Barboza<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cities around the nation have done just about everything to publicize their bids to host Google\u2019s new broadband Internet network, holding parades and parties, producing online videos and taking ice-cold dips in Lake Superior. The city of Long Beach, however, took a more serious route, sending more than 700 letters with the application it submitted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}