First off, congratulations and good luck to all the cities that have applied. It’s been amazing watching what everyone has pulled together so far. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a very unique perspective.
On that note, and based on Google’s post on its official blog that it will be making its selection “…by the end of the year,” we have decided to take a step back from our weekly reports, evaluate the number of cities participating in online efforts around the initiative to make sure that we have the most inclusive list possible and then resume our efforts on a regular basis until Google makes its final decision. Again, we’re not saying in any way that Google is using online share of voice as a factor in its decision making process, but we still want to make sure that everyone knows who the top contenders are around this metric and what they are doing to try to get Google’s attention online. And given Google’s tip of the cap to Topeka today, the question has to be asked: does it hurt to go out of your way a bit to stay top of mind in the digital world?
So, look for our next report sometime in April, and thanks to everyone who continues to send in insights and requests on behalf of your city – we are taking as much relevant information into account as we can. In the meantime, make sure you continue to include your city in your tagging strategy, as we’ll continue to base our search for data on the participating cities, and please don’t hesitate to email me at david.greiner@sgandco.com with questions, concerns and anything else I should know is going on in your world.
Finally, and this is way past due, thanks to Martin at Zettaphile for his efforts in compiling the original list of Google fiber cities on his blog. It was our starting point.
Thanks and again, best of luck to everyone!
David