Earthling

Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.

There were two more EarthLink/Google community meetings in San Francisco since I last wrote about them, one last night and one on the 17th. I'm still looking around today for reports from last night, but there was quite a bit of blog coverage from the 17th. The first two were very different from each other, and judging by the reports the third was more raucous than the first. Much of the conversation seemed to center on Google's free service that will run on top of the EarthLink network, and there are also some residents who are coming to these meetings to argue against the current city plan and in favor of starting over to investigate a fully city-owned and operated network.

In any conversation those with the loudest voices, not necessarily the most numerous or with the greatest needs, are often heard most. While some residents clearly have come to the meetings to question the network's motives or what each participant will gain on a theoretical level, other residents are showing up with very down-to-earth, practical questions: to learn how they might be able to get affordable Wi-Fi, how difficult it will be for a novice to use, whether or not it would work with the computers they have today, whether it’s coming to their neighborhood, and how the whole thing works.

I think some of the theoretical concerns are misdirected at Google and EarthLink, and the residents who show up to lobby for a different project than what the city has asked Google and EarthLink to build are better served working directly with their City Council representatives. While by their nature these community meetings entertain any questions or concerns that residents have, their best purpose is really to go over the details of the project, answer any questions about how it all works and how it would work for them, and hear about local needs as directly as possible. Comparing the EarthLink/Google project to all of the possible theoretical alternatives is fine for blogs, articles, and analysis papers, but focusing on that at these meetings may take away the opportunity for those who have real practical questions to get them addressed.

Here are some write-ups from the meeting on the 17th:

• Davis Freeberg was there and with affection in his write-up refers to his own home town as "land of the nuts and fruits".
  
• Valleywag says the meeting included "angry angry SF political gadflies who somehow think that Google giving away free internet access to the city will harm them."
  
• Thomas Hawk has been following the meetings as well (more here) and is anxious to see the network come together.
  
• Katie from GigaOm.com has her eye on the timeline.
  
• More blog coverage via Techmeme.