"More than 100 cities and counties in 43 states have official and unofficial efforts to develop a pitch for Google's fiber contest." 

Kathy Gill, via GIT, via Google4GSO.

Cash-strapped city officials understand the competitive advantage that a high-speed broadband initiative can mean for economics, both business activity and in-migration attractiveness. It will be interesting to see how many cities with official pitches to Google continue to seek ways to fund this infrastructure when they don’t win the Google prize.

The lasting impact of GSO's effort is the subject of my upcoming newspaper column.

I think our campaign is shaping up pretty nicely, although I'd like to see big growth at the FB page and in the number of nominations. That growth should come if people and organizations already in the game pass the word around their own networks.

Comments

[TL]

Hickory's in the game, too, but not on Gill's list. Hickory's Web site made it official March 1.

http://www.hickorygov.com/egov/docs/1267480205924.htm

[anonymous]

While Winston-SAlem doesnt have the support that Greensboro is getting, they started out much faster than we did. 24 hours after the Twin City put in a bid, they had over 5,200 members on their facebook page. Greensboro needs to make sure it stays ahead of Winston on this because they are almost on our heels.

[RecycleBill]

Hickory would be a smart pick for Google considering how close it is to Lenoir.

[Bubba]

Rich Lowry:

"If they force the bill through, Democrats will have "made history," although not the kind they imagine. Obamacare will constitute a ramshackle monument to partisan willfulness and unscrupulous salesmanship that should forever discredit its architects."

And why is all this happening? Pelosi is still 15-20 votes short of passing the Senate bill, so the sesperation mode has kicked in.

And the notion that "when the public knows what's in it, they approve" is patently absurd on the face of it, as are the people who knowingly support that particular lie.

[Ged]

Thought we were talking about high-speed internet access, not health care.

[Roch101]

"24 hours after the Twin City put in a bid, they had over 5,200 members on their facebook page." -- Anonymous liar

Looks like 181 to me.

[Roch101]

Har! WFMY repeats the bogus figure even though their story links to the Facebook group where it's clear the current W-S membership is at 188.

[anonymous]

i'm not a liar Roch101, I heard it from WFMY too. It appears you can't alway trust new sources.

[Roch101]

Sorry, that was harsh. Anonymouses raise suspicion and I suspected you were some crazy shill. I apologize for the offense.

[Anthony]

Ah. It's the Facebook page for the *city* that has 5200 fans:

http://www.facebook.com/cityofwinstonsalem

[Jim Caserta]

The city of W-S page has 5200+ fans. That page seems to be currently focused on the Google initiative - look at their wall picture. I would imagine that is the source of the 5200 #. I would also imagine that the group was set up prior to Google's RFI - the events listed go back to March 09.

Sometimes mistakes are honest ones.

[Roch101]

JC, WFMY's story linked to the W-S Fiber page, the one with 188 members. A mistake? Sure. Honest? Well, probably. But still, it's notable when a professional media organization gets wrong information from a source to which they link.

[Jim Caserta]

I was more defending anonymous here than wfmy. News orgs 'should' be held to higher standards - more research.

But "should happen != does happen"