Google Office in Madison Confirmed by The Capital Times Newspaper
Official Details on the Google Office in Madison
The Capital Times newspaper has released an article today confirming the news that Google will be opening an office in Madison, Wisconsin.
It is an interesting article that provides details on the new office, and what its role in Madison may be. It also answers an important question that readers were asking in regards to my April 16th post “Google to Open Midwest Office in Madison, Wisconsin“, about where the new office will be located.
According to the article the office will be located at “301 S. Blount, just off Williamson Street”. This confirms the information I posted in my follow-up article where I stated “I have heard the office will most likely be very close to were John Nolan Drive and Williamson Street intersect, or within 2 blocks of this location.” For those who are unfamiliar with Madison, Blount Street is located just one block from this intersection.
For details from my follow-up article please check the following post “Google Office in Madison - Additional Details”
For those who are new to my blog I hope you continue to check back for all the latest tech news and happenings in Madison and around the world. I will try to bring you reliable news as I hear it in addition to guides on computers and technology!
For the complete article from The Capital Times newspaper, please check the link below:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news//index.php?ntid=283649
Here is additional information on the story that can be found at WTN News (Wisconsin Technology Network)
http://wistechnology.com/articles/4715/
As always thanks for checking out Pseudorant! I appreciate the support!
News - Google Office in Madison - Additional Details
Follow-up Details on the Google Office in Madison
I am posting a follow-up article on the Google Office in Madison because I have received a lot of questions from people asking about the specifics of that article.
Let me say first, that at the moment the details are very limited. There have been a number of live journal users who have confirmed the information I originally posted. There are several parties involved in the project so far so some people may have additional details that I don’t know. If you do have additional information, please feel free to post it to my comments so we can gather all the specifics and get a thread going with the details.
The questions I have been asked from people are as follows:
How did you find out about this?
As I mentioned in my original post “Google to Open Midwest Office in Madison, Wisconsin” I received this information from a friend who told me this in passing. They were not trying to pump up a story or get me excited. It was more along the lines of “this is what happened at work today”.
There had been a few brief mentions of this prior to this conversation because of paperwork that was currently in the works. This also involved a meeting with representatives from Google to hammer out details regarding the office space.
How do you know that it’s confirmed?
I also stated in my article about “Blog Mission Statement and News Accuracy” that I would only present information on my blog when it has been almost 100% confirmed. The confirmation that I decided to go by when posting this article was signed contracts regarding the office space Google will be using for their Madison location.
How do you know the location?
This is one spot I should have been clearer on when I posted the article. I mentioned in my original post that it would be in the Willy Street “Area”. This means the office may be “on” Willy Street or might be off a side street near Willy. Either way you should be able to see the building from WIlly Street. I do not know the confirmed address of the building. From what I have heard the office will most likely be very close to were John Nolan Drive and Williamson Street intersect, or within 2 blocks of this location.
Why would Google move to Willy Street?
The area that the office will most likely be in is actually closer to the Capital Square than what people would usually envision when they hear the name “Willy Street”. Do not expect to see a Google office mixed in between hippy clothing stores, world food markets and Mother Fools coffee house. Although based on Google’s company mantras I can see why they might like this area of Madison.
The secondary reason being, that Google apparently found a building in this area with a visual esthetic that matched their tastes. If you have seen the Google offices in California (inside and out) you can get an idea for what I am talking about.
What will this offices role be in Madison, Wisconsin?
The short answer is… no idea.
Sorry, I know you probably don’t want to hear that but it’s true. No one I have talked to that has information on this knows what the office will be used for.
There was a suggestion from Lacherig in a live journal comment that said “Aren’t they currently working on scanning all of the books in the UW’s libraries?” This could be the purpose of the office. In my original article I could only offer speculation as to what the new office might mean for Madison.
The only thing I find strange about the office is that the visual esthetic was an important factor about the building for one reason or another. If I was opening a business that would mainly be used for achieving data I wouldn’t spend the extra time or money on a building that looked “neat”.
This may just be they way Google does things with their company or it might mean that the office may have multiple purposes.
As far as how permanent the office will be, that is also up for speculation. I know that they are going to be renting the office space and they have not purchased any commercial property in Madison at the moment. If they had, I would give the confirmation details right from the AccessDane website regarding the purchase.
Because of this it is impossible to really guess what future plans Google may have for this office.
I personally feel that they should look into making Madison a second home because of how technology oriented the city already is. This could turn out to be something really cool, or it may just be that they are here to catalog books. Either way, it is Google, and that in itself is really cool.
Madison has the potential to be a great location for many successful computer related business. With companies like Raven Software and Human Head Studios that have been operating here for years, it would only be a bonus to have other technology related companies like Google move in next door.
I hope this answers some of the questions that have been floating around since my first post. As I said before I will post more details as they become available to me. This article lays out everything I have heard, so now you know as much as I do about it. (Ok maybe a few choice details were left out at the request of my friend)
I guess that might add a little incentive to check back on Pseudorant to see when those details come to light. Until then thanks for stopping by my blog, and please feel free to post any comments or questions in follow-up to this article.
The first person to post a comment will win a spot right below this article to type stuff! 
(and so on, so forth, I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.)
Thanks for checking out Pseudorant!!!
Blog Theme Change & Other Errands
What have I been up to?
Hey all! To the 80 readers I had today thanks for stopping by! I’m guessing about 30 of them were me having not logged into WP, and I keep getting counted in the stats.
I’m sure all of you have noticed the new look. What? You have never been to the site before? As shocked as I am, I’d like to mention that my blog now has a new look. I have decided to go with a new theme that will allow me to layout my blog in a more effective way for my readers.
The theme I am using now is called WP-Multiflex-3 1.3 by Ainslie Johnson. I really liked the 3 column layout and feel this will give me more flexibility in how I can organize the site. You should see some small improvements and changes over the next week as I work on the rough edges.
I have been so busy today that I didn’t really have any time to post a guide so I decided to outline my day, and why I’m exhausted right about now.
A friend took me and my fiancée out to dinner last night at Granite City (a restaurant in Madison). It was really fun and we had a few drinks and lots of laughs.
I decided to update my WordPress theme when I got home. I have been doing so much research on blogging lately that I was pretty tired when I finally got around to doing the update and went to bed soon after.
You may have also noticed that I now have some plugins running on the site. The ones to note are the “Homepage Excerpts” which makes my site much more readable by condensing the previous posts listed on the page.
Another cool plugin I am trying out is the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin which sends anyone who comments on a post an email when there have been replies. I felt this is VERY important considering how many comments I receive per day. 
(I currently have zero comments on the blog but just think, you could be the first!)
When I got up this morning I realized I needed to mow the lawn. For those of you who know me you probably know that I have just recently moved into my first home. Because of this I had no idea what to expect the first time I mowed this lawn. The scariest thing about my yard is a giant hill I have in the back. I tried to tackle this hill with my non-propelled push mower and ended up falling down the hill in the process. I now have nice green stain on the butt of the only pair of pants I have to wear to work. Go figure.
After that my fiancée and I went out to get her a new cell phone. The reason we had to get her a new phone is because she was switching over to my phone plan. I had been against cell phones for the longest time until I saw the Apple iPhone and I went out and bought one the first week they were out.
Since I hate cell phones so much I tend to only use my iPhone to go online, send email and sometimes text message. Because of this I have over 2050+ rollover minutes saved up that my fiancée has been dying to use.
She ended up going with a Samsung phone that she is currently yakking away on. She also just informed me that her best friend is also on AT&T so it doesn’t use up minutes for the two of them to talk all night long. Like she needs more incentive to talk on the phone all night. >.<
After getting the phone we headed down to hardware store because my parents were going to buy us a grill and bird bath as a house warming present. I picked out a nice Weber charcoal grill, some tongs and charcoal. I can’t wait to use it for the first time.
We also ended up going to “Wild Birds” off Old Sauk road (in Madison) to buy a bird bath and some bird seed. It is amazing to me how much stuff specialty stores can carry. The staff at Wild Birds was very helpful and I ran into a sales guy that wanted to tell me everything about bird baths, feeders, and bird seed.
I was already pretty worn down after having almost killed myself mowing so I smiled and nodded along.
I like watching birds in my backyard but I would say I am far from how involved some of the bird enthusiasts out there are. To me throwing down seed in the grass and watching some birds root around for it, is as complex as my setup needs to be.
I am sure I will post some follow-ups in the future with how the bird colony that is forming in my backyard has grown to dangerous proportions.
Tonight my plan is to study up on some other things about my blog. I would really like to get to a point where I feel as though I can focus solely on content, but I think as with anything in computers it will be a constant learning process.
I hope everyone else is having an interesting weekend. Feel free to leave some comments and make use of the new layout and plugins! I’d be interested to hear what other people in Madison and around the country are up to. Enjoy it while you can, the weekends always seem to shoot by and then it’s back to work!
Walking with Dinosaurs – Madison, May 7th – 11th
Walking with the Dinosaurs!
As I was watching TV the other night I came across something that looked REALLY cool. There is a show coming to Madison called “Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience” which was produced by Immersion Entertainment in association with the BBC. It will be in Madison from May 7th to the 11th at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum.
The show is a live presentation that features Dinosaurs that come out and walk around on stage. Now I remember being a kid and seeing some of the Dinosaur animatronics that you could find in Museums and this blows them all away!
The show consists of 15 different Dinosaurs that come out on stage. From the trailer I saw they feature some of the most realistic Dinosaur movement possible for a live show. With a budget of $20 million dollars they have created quite a show complete with a 40 foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex!
You can check out their website for more information on the event, but unfortunately they do not do a great job of showcasing what the show offers. I found a trailer for it on YouTube which can be reached from the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX3_tnLDUEk
I also found another very interesting video related to this which gives a glimpse into the “making of” for the live performance. It is crazy to me that we live in a world with the technology to produce a mix of animatronics, robots, and human controlled creatures that even 50 years ago would have been mistaken for actual Dinosaurs.
Check out the “Making of” video at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtfMIiinJso
Unfortunately I can’t afford tickets because I have numerous other financial obligations at the moment (not to mention I have heard the show sells out wherever it goes.) so if you are fortunate enough to check it out, please leave a comment and let me know how it was!
Blog Mission Statement and News Accuracy
What is Pseudorant All About?
I have noticed an increase in traffic to my site since yesterday. Because the site is relatively new, pretty much any change in visitors is easy to spot. I have been tracking some of my Blog stats and realized a couple people are linking to my news article about the Google office that will be opening in Madison.
I have back tracked a couple of the links and have seen people discussing whether this is true or not. I just wanted to let people know that any rumor based news I post on my Blog will always be from sources I know and trust. The people who tell me these things say them more in passing, than to trump up some lie they are trying to spread.
I’m glad to see a couple of the responses to these links have also confirmed the rumor. I know there are numerous people involved in different aspects of this transition so other people have knowledge of various details on this also.
The bottom line is I am intending to use my Blog as a repository for guides on various aspects of technology. Along the way I will throw in some cool happenings that I hear about, but this is not going to be the main focus of my Blog. There are already a million news sources online so I will let them focus on being the full time reporters.
This post is more of a mission statement for my Blog, to say I do not intend to try and drive traffic by making up news that is not true. Anything posted here will be accurate to the best of my knowledge. I will also wait to post any news I have until it has been almost 100% confirmed by the people I talk to.
With that being said I am glad some people are finally checking out my Blog. It is currently taking a lot of my time and energy to get this thing off the ground so if you know anyone that is into games, technology, or just finds it funny to listen to someone rant please send them my way. I hope to make some interesting contacts in the Blogging community so I can learn how to make the most of my Blog.
Thanks again for stopping by and please check back for future guides, and rants!
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