WebProNews » Council Bluffs

Google Buys Another 1,000 Acres

Doug Caverly — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:30:16 +0000

What will Google do with 1,000 acres? Well, the company’s not saying. But it has purchased that much land in Iowa, and it’s not likely to let the lot sit idle.

In Council Bluffs, a server farm is already in the works, and is expected to be finished in 2009, according to the Omaha World-Herald. It’s based on 55 acres. The 1,000-acre lot is located nearby, and, as you probably noticed, is much, much bigger.

“Google spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger said it will take more than a year to prepare the land,” reports Tom Shaw. “She said the work is being done now ‘in order to shorten the timeline for possible future deployments.’”

More servers, some sort of research center . . . whatever happens to the site, it’s sure to be impressive – America’s smallest county is only about eight times larger. Look for the development to bring lots of Google’s dollars to the area.

Yet Google’s operations outside of major cities tend to go largely unmanned, so, historically speaking, we’d expect to see more machines than people when all is said and done. Filling 1,000 acres with employees would also go against Eric Schmidt’s supposed hiring slowdown.

Google Base Gets New Bulk Upload Dashboard

Doug Caverly — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:25:58 +0000

Buying in bulk is great until you actually have to transport and store 50 gallons of peanut butter or whatever else is at stake. Uploading in bulk also has its share of problems, but Google Base has introduced a new bulk upload dashboard to make things simpler.

“Be it products, housing, jobs or vehicles, we want to make it easy for you to upload and manage your content in Base,” announced Dimitris Meretakis on the Official Google Base Blog. “The new dashboard provides a better overview of the status of your bulk uploads and your items.”

A pictorial comparison followed, and the fresh arrangement is definitely a big improvement over the old one; in typical Google style, there’s little clutter and a lot of organization. The presence of fewer colors even makes the font easier to read.

Meretakis more or less stopped giving out concrete facts at this point in the blog entry. He did, however, state that other improvements are in the works, writing, “A number of useful features are underway . . . . We’ll keep you posted as new features develop.”

Now, if I just didn’t have to make six trips to carry in all the paper towels.