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OPINION: Turner: Yo Google: Count us in!Mar 07, 2010 (The Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- You may be wondering: What on F Hill is all of this Google-gaggle about lately? So glad you asked. Picture it being the same as building not just an interstate highway through the Four Corners, but about 10 interstate highways, all linking Farmington on a direct route to your 10 favorite cities. Picture it as standing in your doctor's office and needing the advice of a specialist, and presto, three big television screens all light up and on them are three specialists from other locations looking and talking to you as if in the room with you. Picture it as you deciding you want to sponsor a student film-making competition, and with the press of a button, you can watch any submitted film at any time as simple as turning on the television set. Picture it as creating new jobs by luring a call center capable of handling thousands upon thousands of calls instantaneously throughout the day; or by spawning a broadband arms race by a steadily evolving digital communications industry, one competing to bring you better phone, television, radio and Internet service in such exciting ways you've never even imagined. When your great-grandparents were young, would they ever have believed predictions about the portable, finger-size, cellular telephone? When your grandparents were young, could they imagine such a thing as High Definition, 3-D quality television so real it looks as if you can walk into it? When you were young, could you believe there would come day that whenever you needed an answer, for just about anything including where your kids were last night or what year your mother graduated from high school, all you had to do was ask a computer? Can anyone living in the isolated Wild Wild West frontier town of Farmington, N.M., foresee us leading a super-advanced, futuristic-style, fiber-optic revolution? Yes. And we're pretty darn serious about it, too. *** The headlines in the news these days about Google opening a competition to American communities for its ultra-fast networking project is pure marketing genius on Google's part. Google makes money by having people click on its site, and this competition has them clicking by the millions. Google already is a powerhouse in the online world with its well-known search engine, which for those of you with less computer savvy: A search engine is within the Internet system a tool for looking up almost anything you can imagine by simply typing in whatever it is you want to research. Press the enter button, and almost anything ever written with those words pops up on this massive list in which you can scan and select what most fits your needs. The more clicks a site gets, the more it can charge for advertising or target data about people's wants and needs. Cities across the United States are competing with Farmington to win a bid from Google for this exciting new project, which uses fiber optics to provide Internet access up to 100 times faster than what some use. That, in turn, opens the door to the aforementioned possibilities and so much more when it comes to being smart about how to cash in on that speed. We may not have an interstate highway running through Farmington, through this portion of the Navajo Nation or the Four Corners region, but this could be better in some aspects. We could enjoy our remote setting that is rich in Old West culture and is an outdoors sports haven by sharing and promoting it faster than any speeding Corvette, or by packing more online than what any full semi-truck could ever carry, on an asphalt highway. The fiber-charged online highway is so much faster, so much stronger, so much more full of potential for business, education, health and communication applications that could help us. Therefore, imagine having both: the best of high-tech commerce and trade, and the best of a wild and scenic Southwest. You would no longer have to leave home, if this is home, to pursue certain types of opportunity not yet available here today. *** Necessity is the mother of invention. The Farmington community today, which includes Aztec, Bloomfield and extends into the Navajo Nation, has needs. No matter where this Google project goes or how we fare in this interesting competition, it makes us a winner that we're even trying, because it proves we want to explore new ideas for improving our lifestyles. Along those lines, finding the things that are necessary for improving our economy, our social fabric, our touch with the rest of the world all throws the door wide open for creative thinking, and now is the time. Google wants to hear how this project could stand out by being placed in Farmington. It wants forward thinking and fresh new ideas, from teachers, students, business leaders, artists; from anyone. You can share such ideas locally, such as by e-mail to those on the Google task force mentioned in the news these days, to me at the address below, or better, by becoming a part of the effort in nominating Farmington. The winning communities will be selected in large part by community participation. You may nominate our community by going online at: http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/public/options. Help make us a winner. Troy Turner is the editor of The Daily Times. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 450, Farmington, N.M. 87401; or at [email protected]. To see more of The Daily Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.daily-times.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Daily Times, Farmington, N.M. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |